Grasping at Shadows [4/5] (Suikoden II, Jowy and the Highlanders)
Shorter chapter this time, and then there's just one left to go. Am I actually going to finish a solo longfic for once in my fannish life? Yes. Yes I am.
And someone needs to shake Jowy and tell him if once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Seriously.
Title: Grasping at Shadows [4/5] (AO3)
Author:
puella_nerdii
Fandom: Suikoden II
Characters: Jowy Atreides; Luca Blight, Jillia Blight, Seed, Culgan, and a certain cryptic seer.
Rating: R (...is "Warning: Luca Blight" sufficient? If not, violence-bordering-on-graphic, war crimes, and shit-gets-real thematic content should cover it. Additional warning in this chapter for mentions of rape, as per Luca's backstory.)
Words: ~5.7k in this chapter, ~30k overall.
Notes: This fic is unofficially subtitled Jowy Atreides's Terrible Life Choices, by the way. The entire thing, particularly every instance of the word "Silverberg" in it, is Mithrigil's fault, and she knows why.
Summary: "I'll stop this war my own way. No, I'll never let a war like this break out on this soil again. And as you say, I'm prepared to be dishonored, if need be. Nevertheless..." - Suikogaiden 1, Chapter 2
Jowy Atreides wants to slay a monster and bring down a nation. But he has to strike in the right place at the right time, and strike deep while hiding his intent, and the monster is watching -- and laughing.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four: It takes more than one man to start a war, and the death of one man won't finish it.
The cape settles heavily on Jowy's shoulders, more heavily than he expected it to. He hasn't married Jillia yet but he's still wearing the royal colors for this, standing at her side. She doesn't watch her brother-his brother too, now-progress down the great hall. His cape stretches behind him, weighted down with fur and gems and thick silver thread, but he doesn't seem to notice its heaviness. He's in his best plate for this. Everyone in the hall knows what that means about the kind of king they're getting. Not all of them mind.
Jillia might be permitted to look away, but Jowy isn't. He made this happen, after all.
The organ sounds its final note for now, and Luca kneels in the center of the carpet. He must hate doing that. No one else in the hall moves. How could they?
A page stands next to Luca with a torch, and Jowy cringes. It's part of the ceremony, Jillia told him, but he can't be the only one watching the flame with unease as it flickers. He isn't; Culgan's mouth is hard and flat, and the muscle on the side of Seed's jaw twitches. Leon looks the same as he always does, though. He hasn't even removed his coat and scarf for the occasion, and no one seems inclined to ask him to. Leon meets Jowy's eyes, and he nods so slightly that Jowy almost misses it. Everything's proceeding according to plan. He'll make for Radat tomorrow with Luca's orders in hand, and if Kiba hasn't yet heard about Agares's death, he will then. A man like Kiba would never serve Luca willingly; if he doesn't die, he'll defect. Either way suits Jowy's purposes. This part of the plan sounds so simple, when he thinks about it like that.
"As one flame is extinguished, another is lit," the official from Harmonia says. "So it is, and so it ever shall be. In the name of His Holiness Hikusaak, bearer of the Circle Rune, we confer guardianship of this realm upon Luca Blight and appoint him King of Highland."
"By my body and by my soul," Luca says, "as the successor of the Blight family lineage, I pledge to serve this land until I burn my last."
A shiver runs down the hall. Jillia grips the edge of her cloak tighter, and Jowy wonders if he should reach for her hand.
The official sets the crown of Highland on Luca's brow. It's not a grand crown. It's a cold hard band, more steel than gold, and it shouldn't sit as easily on Luca as it does.
"Then rise, King of Highland, and bring us the first light of your reign."
Luca snatches the torch out of the page's hand and throws it into the brazier. Flames shoot from it, twisting higher and higher, and every time Jowy expects them to fall, they don't. "For Highland and Harmonia!" he says, and the laughter lurking in the back of his voice this entire time swells to the forefront. Why should he bother to hide it now?
The fire hisses its approval, and whether or not the crowd gives theirs doesn't matter much. Jowy barely hears the organ start up again over the crackle of the flames, the echoes of Luca's laughter.
"It's done, then," Jillia says after Luca passes them on his way down the great hall.
Only the first part, Jowy doesn't say.
***
There's no coronation feast, no celebration. Someone might be preparing a banquet or hosting a ball in Luca's honor, but if they are, Luca's not in attendance. "It's one of the best parts about all this," he says, and swings his feet onto what used to be his father's table, doesn't bother to remove his boots first. "No damned fetes if I don't feel like hosting them."
Your subjects expect to see you there, anyone foolish enough to try to advise Luca on protocol might say, but his subjects probably don't. "You wish to be alone, your Majesty?" Jowy asks. Say yes, he prays. Just say yes.
"I don't want to spend the night dancing and pretending to listen to empty-headed sheep, if that's what you mean." Luca beckons Jowy closer. "Sit down. You're my brother now, aren't you? You might as well."
Luca's brother. The certainty sinks deeper into his stomach. Marrying Jillia really is just a ceremony at this point, going through the right motions so the right people publicly see. But the right people already saw him take his place with the Blights today, wear their colors. You're a Blight now, he tells himself. It doesn't feel real, but enough of the poison still burns in him that it can't not be.
"Yes, your Majesty," he says, and sits across from Luca. Luca doesn't ask Jowy to serve him this time. He grabs the bottle by the neck and takes a swig straight from it, and whatever's in there smells too strong to be wine.
"Heh," Luca says after a solid half a minute of drinking. He hasn't wiped his mouth. "I never thought I'd have a younger brother. What are you supposed to do with younger brothers?"
Treat him with respect and don't antagonize him, Marcel told Jowy time and time again. Spoil him rotten, it meant. Granted, Nanami never-he stops himself. "I'm not the best person to ask, your Majesty."
"Hmph." Luca curls his moth like he's going to spit.
"I don't imagine it's much different from what you'd do with a younger sister," Jowy says, though gods know whether that's true for Luca or not.
Somehow, Luca laughs while he drinks without choking. How long has he been at this? "A younger sister," he repeats. "Ha. I never expected to have a younger sister, either. That old son of a bitch acted like I didn't. He didn't summon her to court until she was ten." He scowls, flicks the near-empty bottle with the toe of his boot, and Jowy doesn't move to catch it when it topples. He can't.
"I hope maggots breed on every inch of his corpse," Luca adds, grabs the bottle off the ground and gives it a baleful stare. "Don't tell me this damned thing's already run dry."
"Shall I get more, your Majesty?"
"Yes, for hell's sake, don't sit there like an idiot." He snarls, flings the bottle at Jowy's head-no, at the wall behind him, where it shatters. Red drips down the stones, pools at the bottom. It's too thin to look like blood. He hates himself for knowing that, a little. No use dwelling on it; he heads to the serving tray, and his hand hesitates over the nearest bottle.
Some of the poison might still be in his blood. He could nick his finger, squeeze a few drops into Luca's glass, and end his reign now. He could.
"Well? Hurry up."
He clears his throat, keeps his back to Luca. "I saw her Highness in Kyaro sometimes, when I was growing up. But she wasn't always there, so I assumed she returned to the palace…"
"Who knows where the old man had her sent? Some other backwater, no doubt. No one thought it was worth telling me."
Jowy uncorks the bottle, begins to pour a fresh glass. His hand's hidden from Luca, now. If he's quick about it, if he doesn't falter, Luca won't notice a thing.
"Even that young, she looked like Mother," Luca says, and Jowy halts. "No wonder the old man couldn't stand the sight of her. Oh, he knew he was a coward, but what coward doesn't hide from his own cowardice?" His laugh dies almost before it starts.
Now. Do it now.
"Damn it, are you deaf? I told you to get me a drink!"
"Yes, your Majesty," Jowy says, and brings the glass and bottle back to the table. When he finishes this one, he tells himself. I'll do it then. He really will be too blind drunk to notice.
"This stinking country is filled with cowards." Again, Luca ignores the glass, goes straight for the bottle. "They bleat about peace, friendship, understanding. Ha. It's all shit, and it never lasts. Drink," he says, gestures to the glass.
Jowy does, gods help him, and it's all he can do not to choke and sputter.
"Cowards are useless to me. I should kill them all. I will kill them all."
He says it like it's simple fact. Alcohol's supposed to warm you but Jowy freezes down to his toes, too much to shiver.
"Don't look surprised, Jowy," Luca says, and Jowy curses himself silently. "Men who try to appease pigs are no better than pigs themselves. Why should they be spared? They'd only offer the State more treaties, and the State would shit all over them, and we'd be back here again."
"But the State didn't break the last treaty-"
"Who gives a damn about the last treaty?" Luca roars. He backhands Jowy across the face, sends the glass flying from his hand. His strength's as inhuman as it's always been. More inhuman, maybe. Jowy cups his cheek; it's already tender, swelling, stinging.
The glass shards glisten in the lamplight. He could slip one into his hand, pour Luca more to drink until he passes out, slit his throat. Just like butchering a pig. It would be fitting, wouldn't it?
"They broke their treaty when that cunt's father poisoned Genkaku's sword. They broke their treaty when he set his dogs on my mother and me! They violated her for days before we were saved, and I watched every godsdamned second of it! And then I killed them all, because my father and his flock of sheep didn't have the balls to avenge her!"
Jowy wishes to the gods that more of the poison were left in his veins, because that creeping sickness would be better than the one twisting through him now. Did Anabelle-no. No. Anabelle couldn't have known about this. None of them could have. Queen Sara died when he could barely walk, he never thought to ask-
Luca grabs Jowy by the chin, wrenches his head forward. Luca's neck is a handsbreadth from his own. If he reached to his left-
Every line in Luca's face is etched in fury, and spit drips from his teeth like venom. Jowy doesn't look away, doesn't move, doesn't breathe, doesn't think.
"Peace can go to hell," Luca growls. "It always does."
He lets Jowy go, and for once Jowy stays where he is and doesn't stagger back. Luca sweeps the shards of glass off the table. His palm is bleeding. He doesn't seem to care.
"Get another glass," he says. "Drink with me."
Jowy swallows. "Yes, your Majesty," he says, and leaves the room to fetch one, partially to prove that his legs haven't died under him.
He knows he'll come back. Without a knife. Without any poison.
***
The morning light drills into Jowy's eyes, and rubbing them doesn't make the brightness sting any less. The castle's blacksmiths must have decided to use his skull as an anvil sometime last night, and his head's still ringing from it. He groans.
He'd ask what the hell convinced him to spend the night drinking with Luca Blight, but he knows the answer. Wincing, he digs his thumb into the bridge of his nose to ease some of the pressure inside his head. It works, for a little while. But when the pain lessens Luca's words drum in Jowy's skull instead, and rubbing his head doesn't make those go away.
Kill Luca, end the war. It was supposed to be-not simple, killing Luca's going to be anything but that, but straightforward. Luca's lies started this war, didn't they? If Highland hadn't been tricked into seeking vengeance, they'd all have welcomed peace. His throat draws tight, as tight as the knots around his temples. He can't be wrong about that. Gods, don't let him be wrong about that.
"My lord?"
Jillia speaks softly, like usual. Her voice still scrapes against Jowy's ears. "Hello," he says, tries not to cringe at the sound of his own voice.
"Forgive me if I presume," she says, "but you seem unwell."
"I had too much to drink," he says, leaves off the rest. She clasps her hands in front of her skirt, casts her eyes down, and he remembers a portrait in the south tower of the palace. Jillia's posed almost exactly like the woman in it was. He assumed it was Jillia when he first saw it, but what if it's Queen Sara's folded hands, Queen Sara's demure glance? If he's right, then they do look almost exactly alike. Better that than looking like her father, whoever he is. His stomach twists.
"I had heard," she says. "Keeping pace with my brother is no easy task. The castle physician has a draught excellent for remedying these kinds of headaches. I took the liberty of fetching some for you." She draws a slender blue vial from her sleeve, presses it into his hand.
"Thank you," he says, and his temples throb in agreement. He drains the vial in a single swallow; pain flares bright behind his eyes, then fades, like someone's washed his brow in cool water.
"Is that better, my lord?"
"It is." He hesitates. "I grew up in Kyaro, you know."
"Yes, I heard as much."
"I heard rumors about you while I was there," he goes on. "I didn't believe them at first. Kyaro seemed so distant from everything, somewhere the world outside it didn't touch."
"Unchanging, save for the passing of season," Jillia murmurs. "Yes. I remember."
"But you really were there." And Queen Sara was sent there to die, and the great hero of the City-States thirty years prior lived quietly in a dojo with his adopted grandchildren.
At the edge of the village, there was a house, or the remains of one. Fire ate one wall, rot ate the other, and every child in Kyaro was forbidden to play in it. It's not safe, Marcel said when Jowy asked, and left it at that. The children were more descriptive: one night, the people living there invited a demon inside by mistake, and the minute he crossed the threshold he butchered them all. Now their ghosts keep guard over the ruins and force everyone else out, so they never repeat their mistake. Jowy overheard Marcel telling Rosa that the house was a notorious bandit nest, and someone cleared it out one night, and no one's dared to go back since.
Are there places like that in Toto and Ryube-old wounds and scars, left far before Luca Blight razed them to the ground?
"Forgive me, my lord, if I'm interrupting-"
"You're not," he says. "I'm sorry. I was going to say it was strange that we never met."
"From a certain perspective, I suppose."
"But it isn't strange, is it? My world wasn't yours back then. That's what I believed. Maybe-maybe I just didn't know how to look." He looks down. "Maybe I didn't know anything at all."
When he looks up, Jillia's hand is hovering over his shoulder, her fingertips not quite brushing his sleeve. "You were a child," she says, quietly. "And though I don't wish to assume, it does seem as though you're placing yourself at fault for failing to know what you could not possibly have seen, or understood."
He says nothing.
"My world was no larger than yours, in those days," she continues. "It may even have been smaller. The walls were its bounds, and though I studied what lay beyond them, I saw none of it, touched none of it. When I was first summoned to court, I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of it. And there were so many people, too, praising me for things I could not possibly have possessed. I knew, of course, that the king was-" She pauses. "That the king had claimed me as his daughter, but it was a long time before I understood the rest."
"The rest?"
She inclines her head, and her hand falls to her side. It's trembling, so he reaches out to her, folds his fingers around hers. How often do people do that for her?
"Before I understood why his Majesty could barely stand to look at me. Before I understood why my brother-" She pauses again, her fingers curling under his.
It's almost cruel to ask. He does anyway. "What was he like, back then?"
She's silent, still, her expression even more carefully impenetrable than his is at its best. "I wouldn't call his madness hidden, precisely," she says, sifts through each word. "Have you ever tried to prise out the bruised part of a fruit, and found that rot had blackened it to its core?"
Jowy nods, tightens his grip on her hand.
"My brother was like that, I think. He was far from kind, certainly, and contemptuous, but neither disposition was out of place at court. Sometimes rumors reached me-but I attributed them to soldierly exaggeration, or excused them as the cost of war. Many people did." For a moment, Jillia's throat works soundlessly. "I doubt my brother never set out to trick or mislead us; we did that on our own. I suppose it isn't so surprising, when you think about it."
"Why not?" he asks, though he knows the answer.
"It seemed too incredible. For that kind of darkness to have taken root in him for so long, and for none of us to have noticed-we all wanted to believe ourselves wiser than that. I know I did."
The Rune pulses hard on the back of his hand, and its power spiders up Jowy's arms, sharp and prickling. Jillia winces, and he lets go of her hand, rubs his own. He doesn't need to say anything. What the Rune said was enough.
"I learned what happened to the Unicorn Brigade because my brother told me."
Jowy's head jerks up.
"He returned from Tenzan Pass, and boasted of how his sword's thirst had been eased, and laughed. When I first met him, I could have perhaps imagined him capable of such slaughter, but I never imagined he would laugh about it."
She presses her hands into her lap, holds her back perfectly straight. If she doesn't, he thinks, she'll collapse, and she'll need to take the rest of the morning to build herself back up again. He knows the feeling. He should comfort her. Jowy stretches out his arm but can't bring himself to drape it over her shoulders. What kind of reassurance can he offer right now, really? None, and she must know it too.
"Does that answer your question, my lord?"
"Yes." He glances to the side. "I'm sorry."
"You needn't be, but it's kind of you to express concern."
"I'm not kind," he says.
"My lord, you do yourself a disservice."
"Do I?" he asks, and leaves her side, pulls the curtains apart and starts to tie them back. Light pours into the room. It doesn't burn his eyes anymore. It doesn't warm him at all. "What if I've only been pretending?"
"When we spoke in that tent, I saw-"
"I didn't know what I was saying." He winds the sash around his palm, tighter and tighter, and at least the Rune doesn't protest that his blood's backed up. "I didn't know what I was doing."
"But you did mean it," she says, and there's more steel showing in her voice than he's heard there before. He turns; she forces her chin up so her eyes are on level with his. His fist clenches around the sash.
"I meant it," he says.
"As did I, when I said you are not a cruel man."
That was before I killed your father, he doesn't say. "Cruel men win wars, don't they?"
"If I recall correctly, my lord, you told me you wished to end this war, not to win it."
The sash snags on something mid-twist, and he drops the end of it. His fingers tingle with blood, and with the power underneath. She's right, isn't she? She's right about a lot of things, or at least not wrong about them. But that's as dangerous as it is admirable.
"Ending a war is-more complicated," he says.
Jillia inclines her head. "I imagine it is."
***
If drinking with Luca Blight is a bad idea, sparring with him is a worse one. But Jowy's buckling on his vambraces and greaves and breastplate anyway.
"Could be worse," Seed says as he helps Jowy with the buckles on the left. "You could be going after each other with live steel. Unless His Majesty's swapped out his tourney sword for a real one already," he adds. Jowy grits his teeth, forces his chest to unknot.
Culgan gives his shut up, Seed glower. "Remember not to use your sword to block his overhand strikes. You've broken most of your other staff habits well enough, but that one is still there. Turn his blade, or dodge it."
Jowy repeats it inside his head like the beginning of a spell chant. Not for long enough, though; Luca's voice echoes from across the practice yard. "Hurry up! I mean to ride out today, and we won't make it past the city gates if the rest of the army takes this long to fasten a few buckles!"
"Good luck," says Culgan.
"You'll need it," says Seed, as Jowy suspected he would, and thumps him on the back, nudges him onto the bare ground. The dirt crunches under his feet, and each step seems as loud as cannonfire. Soldiers and nobles alike gather around the edges of the yard, murmuring in a low drone. Of course they're all here. It occurs to him that this wouldn't be a bad setup for a tragic accident-or a public execution. He shoves that thought aside. It won't help him fight.
Luca stands in the center, his palm on the pommel of his sword, and draws it to salute Jowy as he approaches. Is that sweep of his blade a salute or a threat? Both, maybe.
"Let's see how much you've learned, younger brother," Luca says, and that's all the time Jowy gets.
By now he should be used to how fast Luca is. He's seen him cut down half a dozen men in the time it takes most soldiers to draw their swords. But his first strike drives into Jowy's gut, and his breath explodes out of him. Luca's blade arcs down and Jowy twists away from it, brings his sword up to pry around for an opening.
There isn't one. Luca batters him back, slices at him across and down and in directions that don't seem possible. Jowy's heel skids on a patch of loose earth and his knee almost gives way-it's a blessing, because otherwise Luca's next cut would have taken his head off, practice sword or no. No time for relief at that. Smiling, each tooth gleaming, Luca reverses direction and swings his blade down in a crescent, whacks Jowy's side. So his sword is blunted, Good. But not good enough, because a low ache pulses up from his side and throbs down his arm. Damn.
"Is that all?" Luca scoffs, punctuates the question with a thrust Jowy barely avoids. "I thought you could put up more of a fight than this!"
Jowy doesn't answer. He can't spare the breath. When Luca strikes next Jowy springs in instead of away, crouched, his sword in the hanging guard made him spend hours practicing. He shifts his grip at the last second, slams his palm into the pommel of his sword for the force he needs. Luca pivots, and instead of the point skewering him, the edge of Jowy's blade scores across his chestplate.
I hit him, Jowy thinks, almost in a daze, before the hilt of Luca's sword smashes into the small of Jowy's back. He drops his sword, smacks the dirt palms first. Luca's sword whistles past his ear and he rolls to the side the way Genkaku taught him: right leg spiraling over left. Once his right knee's planted under him he pushes himself up, lunges for his sword before Luca hits his shoulder He's barely up in time to slide his blade next to Luca's and turn the point away, but he manages.
That means that his hilt locks with Luca's, though, and Before he can break the bind Luca slams down, rams the hilt of his sword into the muscle Jowy's pauldron doesn't cover.
Oh gods. Numbness stings down his arm and his fingers open-no. He can't drop his sword again. The edge of Luca's blade rests alongside Jowy's throat and dulled or not, Jowy's blood swells to the surface underneath.
"Better than before," Luca says, "but you'd still be bleeding out if this were a real fight. Be thankful I'm going to whet my appetite soon, or you would be."
Jowy breathes, and it's as loud as it would be if he spoke.
"Well? Come at me again, unless you've given up already."
He's not going to win. But it isn't time to quit, either. Jowy disengages and shifts back into plow stance, circles to steady his footing but keeps the tip of his blade pointed at Luca's throat.
"Heh," Luca says, and he's on Jowy again.
Winning isn't defeating him. Winning is surviving this. This close, Luca's size and strength overpower all of Jowy's strikes. He needs to break free. Luca brings his arms up for an overhand blow that could cleave a tree, and Jowy rams the hilt of his sword into Luca's armpit. Gods above, that actually staggers him for a second. Jowy untwists his arms, brings his blade level with his eyes, strikes across. The angle's not quite right-his wrist jars when the sword's edge collides with Luca's armor, but it's something.
"So I haven't beaten the fight out of you, is that right?"
He lets the next sweep of his sword, cutting down towards Luca's knee, answer that-and Luca catches Jowy's blade before it hits. How did he-it's the wrong time to ask. Don't stop, he reminds himself, but too late. In the space of that hesitation, Luca wrenches Jowy's sword out of his hands. It skitters across the dirt and Jowy lunges for it, but before his fingers close around the hilt, Luca's at his side. Luca grips his sword by the blade instead of the hilt, and the hilt cracks into Jowy's shoulder hard enough to bruise bone.
The field gives a sickening lurch as pain slams into him like a wave. Staying on his feet isn't even an option, because Luca hooks the crossguard of his sword behind Jowy's neck and wrenches him to the ground. His breath deserts him again.
It's nothing a Water Rune can't fix, he tells himself. The thought doesn't help much.
Luca looms over him, the point of his sword resting above Jowy's heart. "Ha, you really have improved," he says. "I might need more than one stroke to kill you. Do you think Genkaku's whelp will last as long?"
Jowy can't flinch, no matter how hard his shoulder throbs. "You'll find out, your Majesty," he says, drags himself to his feet. Riou-no. Now isn't the time to think about him.
"And soon." Luca's mouth curls. "Crushing those miserable little maggots will make my sword sing."
There isn't much Jowy can say to that, or that Luca expects him to say. He bows instead, and manages not to topple over. "Your Majesty."
"Did you hear that, men?" Luca shouts, thrusts his sword into the air. "We march on those curs from the State, and Dunan Lake will overflow its banks with their blood!"
Jowy knows exactly how loudly they'll cheer, and for how long. He presses his lips together and walks, more haltingly than he'd like, to the side of the field. Seed's waiting for him, Flowing Rune at the ready. Let him grumble all he wants about how this spell's meant to heal groups of soldiers, not dumbasses who decide to kick off a campaign by fighting Luca Blight. The spell sinks in and cools the fire in Jowy's shoulder, and that's all he can ask for right now.
"-and you're lucky nothing broke, because riding with a broken anything hurts worse than scraping your ass with a cactus," Seed finishes, and the glow around his hand fades.
"Evocative," Culgan says, dry as the Southern Desert.
"I've heard worse." Jowy rolls his shoulder back slowly. It twinges, but it doesn't scream at him. "And I've had worse, I think."
Seed grimaces. "You'll probably get worse if you face off against him again."
"I won't," Jowy says. "Not like that."
***
Jowy's engagement to Jillia entitles him to space in the royal tent, if he so chooses. He doesn't. It's not like Luca's going to press the issue.
The reinforcements from Harmonia are arriving tomorrow, thousands of them. Leon told him that they're commanded by Bishop Sasarai, but the name means less to Jowy than it should. He'll speak with Leon about it tomorrow. Better to rest tonight. If he can.
Moonlight filters under the tent, soft and silver. It reaches his face, and he turns his head away so his eyes fall into darkness again, but he's not any less awake. His body never listens to him about this. Sighing, Jowy tucks the blanket over his head, muffles out the rest of the world.
When he was younger, he used to read himself to sleep whenever he could get away with it. That won't work now. He has nothing to read but reports. Some men fall asleep reading those, but Jowy isn't one of them. Does Luca do anything to force himself to fall asleep? Come to think of it, Jowy isn't sure he's ever seen Luca sleep. But he must, sometimes. And he certainly dreams. Jowy can picture them: fire and blood and the world ripped apart by twin sets of jaws, and the faces of his enemies burnt and slashed beyond recognition. He must dream about killing Jowy, too. Fine. So be it.
The air chimes, the light in his tent brightens and swells, and it's familiar in a way Jowy can't place. He sits up. A shape comes into focus in front of him: a woman with robes as white as her hair is dark. Her eyes are closed, but she looks straight at him anyway.
"Lady Leknaat," he says.
"Jowy Atreides." A faint flicker of light crosses her face, as if she could blink even though they're already closed. "Forgive me: Prince Jowy Blight of Highland. Your journey has already lain claim to one name and bound you to another."
He stares at the ground, notices that her feet don't touch it. I'm not Prince of Highland yet, he could say, but it's only a token protest. Come to think of it, he might never get the chance to be Prince of Highland, officially. The thought twists deep inside him, takes root at the base of his spine and makes it stiffen.
"But the path is still yours, as much your own paving as that of the stars. Your tread has shaped it, your eyes have marked its turns, but as I, you see not its end. You are intent upon the hope and the horizon, and the brambles nearest your feet-but you are not the only walker on this path."
He takes a moment to digest that. "Riou," he says. "That's who you mean, isn't it?"
"No. Just as the paths in the shrine, yours shall cross, but his is his and yours is yours. No, I speak of those who have tread it, and tread it still in shadows, and those who lurk in yours as you lurk in theirs."
"I don't understand."
"The understanding is in you, in fragments. Perhaps only if you take your eyes from one horizon to another will you see its shape."
"What other horizon?" he asks, rubs the back of his right hand. The Rune's pulse picks up; something's whispering in his blood, but he can't say what it is.
"Not the one you seek," she says, wind rustling her robes and hair. "The one you leave."
Oh. The hairs on the back of his neck stir. There's nothing behind him, there can't be, but he glances all the same.
"Before you, there is a darkness that obfuscates the means of your destiny. Behind you, the creature that casts that shadow. And if that shadow encompasses your path, you walk in it even now, seeking a horizon that casts no light to guide you. Remove that which blocks the sun, and your fate will be in sight."
"I will," he says. "He won't return from this campaign. I've made sure of it."
He almost expects soldiers to come rushing in at those words, or for a thunderclap to echo across the sky. Luca Blight will die. He hasn't let himself speak that before now. And now that he has-well, the path Leknaat talked about must have solidified.
"But there is still another source, and with it, another shadow, the one that chills your shoulders and haunts your steps, and you cannot face it without turning from the path set out before you."
"The war itself. I know."
Leknaat lowers her head into the wind, and says nothing.
The wind's making his skin prickle. He hopes it's the wind. "That's what you meant, isn't it?"
"There is more to war than a beginning and an end," she says.
"I know," he says, grits his teeth so he won't shout. "I have to stop it from beginning again, don't I?"
Leknaat begins to fade, or the wind begins to thicken. "What you must do is known only to you. What you will do is destiny's province.
"What do you mean?" he asks, but by the time he's finished speaking, she's gone. The flap of the tent flutters in the breeze she left behind, and when it falls still, there's no sign she was ever here at all.
What he will do, she said. Jowy shakes his head. There's only one path before him now. He just has to keep walking it, that's all.
---
--
on to part five
.
And someone needs to shake Jowy and tell him if once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Seriously.
Title: Grasping at Shadows [4/5] (AO3)
Author:
puella_nerdii
Fandom: Suikoden II
Characters: Jowy Atreides; Luca Blight, Jillia Blight, Seed, Culgan, and a certain cryptic seer.
Rating: R (...is "Warning: Luca Blight" sufficient? If not, violence-bordering-on-graphic, war crimes, and shit-gets-real thematic content should cover it. Additional warning in this chapter for mentions of rape, as per Luca's backstory.)
Words: ~5.7k in this chapter, ~30k overall.
Notes: This fic is unofficially subtitled Jowy Atreides's Terrible Life Choices, by the way. The entire thing, particularly every instance of the word "Silverberg" in it, is Mithrigil's fault, and she knows why.
Summary: "I'll stop this war my own way. No, I'll never let a war like this break out on this soil again. And as you say, I'm prepared to be dishonored, if need be. Nevertheless..." - Suikogaiden 1, Chapter 2
Jowy Atreides wants to slay a monster and bring down a nation. But he has to strike in the right place at the right time, and strike deep while hiding his intent, and the monster is watching -- and laughing.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four: It takes more than one man to start a war, and the death of one man won't finish it.
The cape settles heavily on Jowy's shoulders, more heavily than he expected it to. He hasn't married Jillia yet but he's still wearing the royal colors for this, standing at her side. She doesn't watch her brother-his brother too, now-progress down the great hall. His cape stretches behind him, weighted down with fur and gems and thick silver thread, but he doesn't seem to notice its heaviness. He's in his best plate for this. Everyone in the hall knows what that means about the kind of king they're getting. Not all of them mind.
Jillia might be permitted to look away, but Jowy isn't. He made this happen, after all.
The organ sounds its final note for now, and Luca kneels in the center of the carpet. He must hate doing that. No one else in the hall moves. How could they?
A page stands next to Luca with a torch, and Jowy cringes. It's part of the ceremony, Jillia told him, but he can't be the only one watching the flame with unease as it flickers. He isn't; Culgan's mouth is hard and flat, and the muscle on the side of Seed's jaw twitches. Leon looks the same as he always does, though. He hasn't even removed his coat and scarf for the occasion, and no one seems inclined to ask him to. Leon meets Jowy's eyes, and he nods so slightly that Jowy almost misses it. Everything's proceeding according to plan. He'll make for Radat tomorrow with Luca's orders in hand, and if Kiba hasn't yet heard about Agares's death, he will then. A man like Kiba would never serve Luca willingly; if he doesn't die, he'll defect. Either way suits Jowy's purposes. This part of the plan sounds so simple, when he thinks about it like that.
"As one flame is extinguished, another is lit," the official from Harmonia says. "So it is, and so it ever shall be. In the name of His Holiness Hikusaak, bearer of the Circle Rune, we confer guardianship of this realm upon Luca Blight and appoint him King of Highland."
"By my body and by my soul," Luca says, "as the successor of the Blight family lineage, I pledge to serve this land until I burn my last."
A shiver runs down the hall. Jillia grips the edge of her cloak tighter, and Jowy wonders if he should reach for her hand.
The official sets the crown of Highland on Luca's brow. It's not a grand crown. It's a cold hard band, more steel than gold, and it shouldn't sit as easily on Luca as it does.
"Then rise, King of Highland, and bring us the first light of your reign."
Luca snatches the torch out of the page's hand and throws it into the brazier. Flames shoot from it, twisting higher and higher, and every time Jowy expects them to fall, they don't. "For Highland and Harmonia!" he says, and the laughter lurking in the back of his voice this entire time swells to the forefront. Why should he bother to hide it now?
The fire hisses its approval, and whether or not the crowd gives theirs doesn't matter much. Jowy barely hears the organ start up again over the crackle of the flames, the echoes of Luca's laughter.
"It's done, then," Jillia says after Luca passes them on his way down the great hall.
Only the first part, Jowy doesn't say.
***
There's no coronation feast, no celebration. Someone might be preparing a banquet or hosting a ball in Luca's honor, but if they are, Luca's not in attendance. "It's one of the best parts about all this," he says, and swings his feet onto what used to be his father's table, doesn't bother to remove his boots first. "No damned fetes if I don't feel like hosting them."
Your subjects expect to see you there, anyone foolish enough to try to advise Luca on protocol might say, but his subjects probably don't. "You wish to be alone, your Majesty?" Jowy asks. Say yes, he prays. Just say yes.
"I don't want to spend the night dancing and pretending to listen to empty-headed sheep, if that's what you mean." Luca beckons Jowy closer. "Sit down. You're my brother now, aren't you? You might as well."
Luca's brother. The certainty sinks deeper into his stomach. Marrying Jillia really is just a ceremony at this point, going through the right motions so the right people publicly see. But the right people already saw him take his place with the Blights today, wear their colors. You're a Blight now, he tells himself. It doesn't feel real, but enough of the poison still burns in him that it can't not be.
"Yes, your Majesty," he says, and sits across from Luca. Luca doesn't ask Jowy to serve him this time. He grabs the bottle by the neck and takes a swig straight from it, and whatever's in there smells too strong to be wine.
"Heh," Luca says after a solid half a minute of drinking. He hasn't wiped his mouth. "I never thought I'd have a younger brother. What are you supposed to do with younger brothers?"
Treat him with respect and don't antagonize him, Marcel told Jowy time and time again. Spoil him rotten, it meant. Granted, Nanami never-he stops himself. "I'm not the best person to ask, your Majesty."
"Hmph." Luca curls his moth like he's going to spit.
"I don't imagine it's much different from what you'd do with a younger sister," Jowy says, though gods know whether that's true for Luca or not.
Somehow, Luca laughs while he drinks without choking. How long has he been at this? "A younger sister," he repeats. "Ha. I never expected to have a younger sister, either. That old son of a bitch acted like I didn't. He didn't summon her to court until she was ten." He scowls, flicks the near-empty bottle with the toe of his boot, and Jowy doesn't move to catch it when it topples. He can't.
"I hope maggots breed on every inch of his corpse," Luca adds, grabs the bottle off the ground and gives it a baleful stare. "Don't tell me this damned thing's already run dry."
"Shall I get more, your Majesty?"
"Yes, for hell's sake, don't sit there like an idiot." He snarls, flings the bottle at Jowy's head-no, at the wall behind him, where it shatters. Red drips down the stones, pools at the bottom. It's too thin to look like blood. He hates himself for knowing that, a little. No use dwelling on it; he heads to the serving tray, and his hand hesitates over the nearest bottle.
Some of the poison might still be in his blood. He could nick his finger, squeeze a few drops into Luca's glass, and end his reign now. He could.
"Well? Hurry up."
He clears his throat, keeps his back to Luca. "I saw her Highness in Kyaro sometimes, when I was growing up. But she wasn't always there, so I assumed she returned to the palace…"
"Who knows where the old man had her sent? Some other backwater, no doubt. No one thought it was worth telling me."
Jowy uncorks the bottle, begins to pour a fresh glass. His hand's hidden from Luca, now. If he's quick about it, if he doesn't falter, Luca won't notice a thing.
"Even that young, she looked like Mother," Luca says, and Jowy halts. "No wonder the old man couldn't stand the sight of her. Oh, he knew he was a coward, but what coward doesn't hide from his own cowardice?" His laugh dies almost before it starts.
Now. Do it now.
"Damn it, are you deaf? I told you to get me a drink!"
"Yes, your Majesty," Jowy says, and brings the glass and bottle back to the table. When he finishes this one, he tells himself. I'll do it then. He really will be too blind drunk to notice.
"This stinking country is filled with cowards." Again, Luca ignores the glass, goes straight for the bottle. "They bleat about peace, friendship, understanding. Ha. It's all shit, and it never lasts. Drink," he says, gestures to the glass.
Jowy does, gods help him, and it's all he can do not to choke and sputter.
"Cowards are useless to me. I should kill them all. I will kill them all."
He says it like it's simple fact. Alcohol's supposed to warm you but Jowy freezes down to his toes, too much to shiver.
"Don't look surprised, Jowy," Luca says, and Jowy curses himself silently. "Men who try to appease pigs are no better than pigs themselves. Why should they be spared? They'd only offer the State more treaties, and the State would shit all over them, and we'd be back here again."
"But the State didn't break the last treaty-"
"Who gives a damn about the last treaty?" Luca roars. He backhands Jowy across the face, sends the glass flying from his hand. His strength's as inhuman as it's always been. More inhuman, maybe. Jowy cups his cheek; it's already tender, swelling, stinging.
The glass shards glisten in the lamplight. He could slip one into his hand, pour Luca more to drink until he passes out, slit his throat. Just like butchering a pig. It would be fitting, wouldn't it?
"They broke their treaty when that cunt's father poisoned Genkaku's sword. They broke their treaty when he set his dogs on my mother and me! They violated her for days before we were saved, and I watched every godsdamned second of it! And then I killed them all, because my father and his flock of sheep didn't have the balls to avenge her!"
Jowy wishes to the gods that more of the poison were left in his veins, because that creeping sickness would be better than the one twisting through him now. Did Anabelle-no. No. Anabelle couldn't have known about this. None of them could have. Queen Sara died when he could barely walk, he never thought to ask-
Luca grabs Jowy by the chin, wrenches his head forward. Luca's neck is a handsbreadth from his own. If he reached to his left-
Every line in Luca's face is etched in fury, and spit drips from his teeth like venom. Jowy doesn't look away, doesn't move, doesn't breathe, doesn't think.
"Peace can go to hell," Luca growls. "It always does."
He lets Jowy go, and for once Jowy stays where he is and doesn't stagger back. Luca sweeps the shards of glass off the table. His palm is bleeding. He doesn't seem to care.
"Get another glass," he says. "Drink with me."
Jowy swallows. "Yes, your Majesty," he says, and leaves the room to fetch one, partially to prove that his legs haven't died under him.
He knows he'll come back. Without a knife. Without any poison.
***
The morning light drills into Jowy's eyes, and rubbing them doesn't make the brightness sting any less. The castle's blacksmiths must have decided to use his skull as an anvil sometime last night, and his head's still ringing from it. He groans.
He'd ask what the hell convinced him to spend the night drinking with Luca Blight, but he knows the answer. Wincing, he digs his thumb into the bridge of his nose to ease some of the pressure inside his head. It works, for a little while. But when the pain lessens Luca's words drum in Jowy's skull instead, and rubbing his head doesn't make those go away.
Kill Luca, end the war. It was supposed to be-not simple, killing Luca's going to be anything but that, but straightforward. Luca's lies started this war, didn't they? If Highland hadn't been tricked into seeking vengeance, they'd all have welcomed peace. His throat draws tight, as tight as the knots around his temples. He can't be wrong about that. Gods, don't let him be wrong about that.
"My lord?"
Jillia speaks softly, like usual. Her voice still scrapes against Jowy's ears. "Hello," he says, tries not to cringe at the sound of his own voice.
"Forgive me if I presume," she says, "but you seem unwell."
"I had too much to drink," he says, leaves off the rest. She clasps her hands in front of her skirt, casts her eyes down, and he remembers a portrait in the south tower of the palace. Jillia's posed almost exactly like the woman in it was. He assumed it was Jillia when he first saw it, but what if it's Queen Sara's folded hands, Queen Sara's demure glance? If he's right, then they do look almost exactly alike. Better that than looking like her father, whoever he is. His stomach twists.
"I had heard," she says. "Keeping pace with my brother is no easy task. The castle physician has a draught excellent for remedying these kinds of headaches. I took the liberty of fetching some for you." She draws a slender blue vial from her sleeve, presses it into his hand.
"Thank you," he says, and his temples throb in agreement. He drains the vial in a single swallow; pain flares bright behind his eyes, then fades, like someone's washed his brow in cool water.
"Is that better, my lord?"
"It is." He hesitates. "I grew up in Kyaro, you know."
"Yes, I heard as much."
"I heard rumors about you while I was there," he goes on. "I didn't believe them at first. Kyaro seemed so distant from everything, somewhere the world outside it didn't touch."
"Unchanging, save for the passing of season," Jillia murmurs. "Yes. I remember."
"But you really were there." And Queen Sara was sent there to die, and the great hero of the City-States thirty years prior lived quietly in a dojo with his adopted grandchildren.
At the edge of the village, there was a house, or the remains of one. Fire ate one wall, rot ate the other, and every child in Kyaro was forbidden to play in it. It's not safe, Marcel said when Jowy asked, and left it at that. The children were more descriptive: one night, the people living there invited a demon inside by mistake, and the minute he crossed the threshold he butchered them all. Now their ghosts keep guard over the ruins and force everyone else out, so they never repeat their mistake. Jowy overheard Marcel telling Rosa that the house was a notorious bandit nest, and someone cleared it out one night, and no one's dared to go back since.
Are there places like that in Toto and Ryube-old wounds and scars, left far before Luca Blight razed them to the ground?
"Forgive me, my lord, if I'm interrupting-"
"You're not," he says. "I'm sorry. I was going to say it was strange that we never met."
"From a certain perspective, I suppose."
"But it isn't strange, is it? My world wasn't yours back then. That's what I believed. Maybe-maybe I just didn't know how to look." He looks down. "Maybe I didn't know anything at all."
When he looks up, Jillia's hand is hovering over his shoulder, her fingertips not quite brushing his sleeve. "You were a child," she says, quietly. "And though I don't wish to assume, it does seem as though you're placing yourself at fault for failing to know what you could not possibly have seen, or understood."
He says nothing.
"My world was no larger than yours, in those days," she continues. "It may even have been smaller. The walls were its bounds, and though I studied what lay beyond them, I saw none of it, touched none of it. When I was first summoned to court, I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of it. And there were so many people, too, praising me for things I could not possibly have possessed. I knew, of course, that the king was-" She pauses. "That the king had claimed me as his daughter, but it was a long time before I understood the rest."
"The rest?"
She inclines her head, and her hand falls to her side. It's trembling, so he reaches out to her, folds his fingers around hers. How often do people do that for her?
"Before I understood why his Majesty could barely stand to look at me. Before I understood why my brother-" She pauses again, her fingers curling under his.
It's almost cruel to ask. He does anyway. "What was he like, back then?"
She's silent, still, her expression even more carefully impenetrable than his is at its best. "I wouldn't call his madness hidden, precisely," she says, sifts through each word. "Have you ever tried to prise out the bruised part of a fruit, and found that rot had blackened it to its core?"
Jowy nods, tightens his grip on her hand.
"My brother was like that, I think. He was far from kind, certainly, and contemptuous, but neither disposition was out of place at court. Sometimes rumors reached me-but I attributed them to soldierly exaggeration, or excused them as the cost of war. Many people did." For a moment, Jillia's throat works soundlessly. "I doubt my brother never set out to trick or mislead us; we did that on our own. I suppose it isn't so surprising, when you think about it."
"Why not?" he asks, though he knows the answer.
"It seemed too incredible. For that kind of darkness to have taken root in him for so long, and for none of us to have noticed-we all wanted to believe ourselves wiser than that. I know I did."
The Rune pulses hard on the back of his hand, and its power spiders up Jowy's arms, sharp and prickling. Jillia winces, and he lets go of her hand, rubs his own. He doesn't need to say anything. What the Rune said was enough.
"I learned what happened to the Unicorn Brigade because my brother told me."
Jowy's head jerks up.
"He returned from Tenzan Pass, and boasted of how his sword's thirst had been eased, and laughed. When I first met him, I could have perhaps imagined him capable of such slaughter, but I never imagined he would laugh about it."
She presses her hands into her lap, holds her back perfectly straight. If she doesn't, he thinks, she'll collapse, and she'll need to take the rest of the morning to build herself back up again. He knows the feeling. He should comfort her. Jowy stretches out his arm but can't bring himself to drape it over her shoulders. What kind of reassurance can he offer right now, really? None, and she must know it too.
"Does that answer your question, my lord?"
"Yes." He glances to the side. "I'm sorry."
"You needn't be, but it's kind of you to express concern."
"I'm not kind," he says.
"My lord, you do yourself a disservice."
"Do I?" he asks, and leaves her side, pulls the curtains apart and starts to tie them back. Light pours into the room. It doesn't burn his eyes anymore. It doesn't warm him at all. "What if I've only been pretending?"
"When we spoke in that tent, I saw-"
"I didn't know what I was saying." He winds the sash around his palm, tighter and tighter, and at least the Rune doesn't protest that his blood's backed up. "I didn't know what I was doing."
"But you did mean it," she says, and there's more steel showing in her voice than he's heard there before. He turns; she forces her chin up so her eyes are on level with his. His fist clenches around the sash.
"I meant it," he says.
"As did I, when I said you are not a cruel man."
That was before I killed your father, he doesn't say. "Cruel men win wars, don't they?"
"If I recall correctly, my lord, you told me you wished to end this war, not to win it."
The sash snags on something mid-twist, and he drops the end of it. His fingers tingle with blood, and with the power underneath. She's right, isn't she? She's right about a lot of things, or at least not wrong about them. But that's as dangerous as it is admirable.
"Ending a war is-more complicated," he says.
Jillia inclines her head. "I imagine it is."
***
If drinking with Luca Blight is a bad idea, sparring with him is a worse one. But Jowy's buckling on his vambraces and greaves and breastplate anyway.
"Could be worse," Seed says as he helps Jowy with the buckles on the left. "You could be going after each other with live steel. Unless His Majesty's swapped out his tourney sword for a real one already," he adds. Jowy grits his teeth, forces his chest to unknot.
Culgan gives his shut up, Seed glower. "Remember not to use your sword to block his overhand strikes. You've broken most of your other staff habits well enough, but that one is still there. Turn his blade, or dodge it."
Jowy repeats it inside his head like the beginning of a spell chant. Not for long enough, though; Luca's voice echoes from across the practice yard. "Hurry up! I mean to ride out today, and we won't make it past the city gates if the rest of the army takes this long to fasten a few buckles!"
"Good luck," says Culgan.
"You'll need it," says Seed, as Jowy suspected he would, and thumps him on the back, nudges him onto the bare ground. The dirt crunches under his feet, and each step seems as loud as cannonfire. Soldiers and nobles alike gather around the edges of the yard, murmuring in a low drone. Of course they're all here. It occurs to him that this wouldn't be a bad setup for a tragic accident-or a public execution. He shoves that thought aside. It won't help him fight.
Luca stands in the center, his palm on the pommel of his sword, and draws it to salute Jowy as he approaches. Is that sweep of his blade a salute or a threat? Both, maybe.
"Let's see how much you've learned, younger brother," Luca says, and that's all the time Jowy gets.
By now he should be used to how fast Luca is. He's seen him cut down half a dozen men in the time it takes most soldiers to draw their swords. But his first strike drives into Jowy's gut, and his breath explodes out of him. Luca's blade arcs down and Jowy twists away from it, brings his sword up to pry around for an opening.
There isn't one. Luca batters him back, slices at him across and down and in directions that don't seem possible. Jowy's heel skids on a patch of loose earth and his knee almost gives way-it's a blessing, because otherwise Luca's next cut would have taken his head off, practice sword or no. No time for relief at that. Smiling, each tooth gleaming, Luca reverses direction and swings his blade down in a crescent, whacks Jowy's side. So his sword is blunted, Good. But not good enough, because a low ache pulses up from his side and throbs down his arm. Damn.
"Is that all?" Luca scoffs, punctuates the question with a thrust Jowy barely avoids. "I thought you could put up more of a fight than this!"
Jowy doesn't answer. He can't spare the breath. When Luca strikes next Jowy springs in instead of away, crouched, his sword in the hanging guard made him spend hours practicing. He shifts his grip at the last second, slams his palm into the pommel of his sword for the force he needs. Luca pivots, and instead of the point skewering him, the edge of Jowy's blade scores across his chestplate.
I hit him, Jowy thinks, almost in a daze, before the hilt of Luca's sword smashes into the small of Jowy's back. He drops his sword, smacks the dirt palms first. Luca's sword whistles past his ear and he rolls to the side the way Genkaku taught him: right leg spiraling over left. Once his right knee's planted under him he pushes himself up, lunges for his sword before Luca hits his shoulder He's barely up in time to slide his blade next to Luca's and turn the point away, but he manages.
That means that his hilt locks with Luca's, though, and Before he can break the bind Luca slams down, rams the hilt of his sword into the muscle Jowy's pauldron doesn't cover.
Oh gods. Numbness stings down his arm and his fingers open-no. He can't drop his sword again. The edge of Luca's blade rests alongside Jowy's throat and dulled or not, Jowy's blood swells to the surface underneath.
"Better than before," Luca says, "but you'd still be bleeding out if this were a real fight. Be thankful I'm going to whet my appetite soon, or you would be."
Jowy breathes, and it's as loud as it would be if he spoke.
"Well? Come at me again, unless you've given up already."
He's not going to win. But it isn't time to quit, either. Jowy disengages and shifts back into plow stance, circles to steady his footing but keeps the tip of his blade pointed at Luca's throat.
"Heh," Luca says, and he's on Jowy again.
Winning isn't defeating him. Winning is surviving this. This close, Luca's size and strength overpower all of Jowy's strikes. He needs to break free. Luca brings his arms up for an overhand blow that could cleave a tree, and Jowy rams the hilt of his sword into Luca's armpit. Gods above, that actually staggers him for a second. Jowy untwists his arms, brings his blade level with his eyes, strikes across. The angle's not quite right-his wrist jars when the sword's edge collides with Luca's armor, but it's something.
"So I haven't beaten the fight out of you, is that right?"
He lets the next sweep of his sword, cutting down towards Luca's knee, answer that-and Luca catches Jowy's blade before it hits. How did he-it's the wrong time to ask. Don't stop, he reminds himself, but too late. In the space of that hesitation, Luca wrenches Jowy's sword out of his hands. It skitters across the dirt and Jowy lunges for it, but before his fingers close around the hilt, Luca's at his side. Luca grips his sword by the blade instead of the hilt, and the hilt cracks into Jowy's shoulder hard enough to bruise bone.
The field gives a sickening lurch as pain slams into him like a wave. Staying on his feet isn't even an option, because Luca hooks the crossguard of his sword behind Jowy's neck and wrenches him to the ground. His breath deserts him again.
It's nothing a Water Rune can't fix, he tells himself. The thought doesn't help much.
Luca looms over him, the point of his sword resting above Jowy's heart. "Ha, you really have improved," he says. "I might need more than one stroke to kill you. Do you think Genkaku's whelp will last as long?"
Jowy can't flinch, no matter how hard his shoulder throbs. "You'll find out, your Majesty," he says, drags himself to his feet. Riou-no. Now isn't the time to think about him.
"And soon." Luca's mouth curls. "Crushing those miserable little maggots will make my sword sing."
There isn't much Jowy can say to that, or that Luca expects him to say. He bows instead, and manages not to topple over. "Your Majesty."
"Did you hear that, men?" Luca shouts, thrusts his sword into the air. "We march on those curs from the State, and Dunan Lake will overflow its banks with their blood!"
Jowy knows exactly how loudly they'll cheer, and for how long. He presses his lips together and walks, more haltingly than he'd like, to the side of the field. Seed's waiting for him, Flowing Rune at the ready. Let him grumble all he wants about how this spell's meant to heal groups of soldiers, not dumbasses who decide to kick off a campaign by fighting Luca Blight. The spell sinks in and cools the fire in Jowy's shoulder, and that's all he can ask for right now.
"-and you're lucky nothing broke, because riding with a broken anything hurts worse than scraping your ass with a cactus," Seed finishes, and the glow around his hand fades.
"Evocative," Culgan says, dry as the Southern Desert.
"I've heard worse." Jowy rolls his shoulder back slowly. It twinges, but it doesn't scream at him. "And I've had worse, I think."
Seed grimaces. "You'll probably get worse if you face off against him again."
"I won't," Jowy says. "Not like that."
***
Jowy's engagement to Jillia entitles him to space in the royal tent, if he so chooses. He doesn't. It's not like Luca's going to press the issue.
The reinforcements from Harmonia are arriving tomorrow, thousands of them. Leon told him that they're commanded by Bishop Sasarai, but the name means less to Jowy than it should. He'll speak with Leon about it tomorrow. Better to rest tonight. If he can.
Moonlight filters under the tent, soft and silver. It reaches his face, and he turns his head away so his eyes fall into darkness again, but he's not any less awake. His body never listens to him about this. Sighing, Jowy tucks the blanket over his head, muffles out the rest of the world.
When he was younger, he used to read himself to sleep whenever he could get away with it. That won't work now. He has nothing to read but reports. Some men fall asleep reading those, but Jowy isn't one of them. Does Luca do anything to force himself to fall asleep? Come to think of it, Jowy isn't sure he's ever seen Luca sleep. But he must, sometimes. And he certainly dreams. Jowy can picture them: fire and blood and the world ripped apart by twin sets of jaws, and the faces of his enemies burnt and slashed beyond recognition. He must dream about killing Jowy, too. Fine. So be it.
The air chimes, the light in his tent brightens and swells, and it's familiar in a way Jowy can't place. He sits up. A shape comes into focus in front of him: a woman with robes as white as her hair is dark. Her eyes are closed, but she looks straight at him anyway.
"Lady Leknaat," he says.
"Jowy Atreides." A faint flicker of light crosses her face, as if she could blink even though they're already closed. "Forgive me: Prince Jowy Blight of Highland. Your journey has already lain claim to one name and bound you to another."
He stares at the ground, notices that her feet don't touch it. I'm not Prince of Highland yet, he could say, but it's only a token protest. Come to think of it, he might never get the chance to be Prince of Highland, officially. The thought twists deep inside him, takes root at the base of his spine and makes it stiffen.
"But the path is still yours, as much your own paving as that of the stars. Your tread has shaped it, your eyes have marked its turns, but as I, you see not its end. You are intent upon the hope and the horizon, and the brambles nearest your feet-but you are not the only walker on this path."
He takes a moment to digest that. "Riou," he says. "That's who you mean, isn't it?"
"No. Just as the paths in the shrine, yours shall cross, but his is his and yours is yours. No, I speak of those who have tread it, and tread it still in shadows, and those who lurk in yours as you lurk in theirs."
"I don't understand."
"The understanding is in you, in fragments. Perhaps only if you take your eyes from one horizon to another will you see its shape."
"What other horizon?" he asks, rubs the back of his right hand. The Rune's pulse picks up; something's whispering in his blood, but he can't say what it is.
"Not the one you seek," she says, wind rustling her robes and hair. "The one you leave."
Oh. The hairs on the back of his neck stir. There's nothing behind him, there can't be, but he glances all the same.
"Before you, there is a darkness that obfuscates the means of your destiny. Behind you, the creature that casts that shadow. And if that shadow encompasses your path, you walk in it even now, seeking a horizon that casts no light to guide you. Remove that which blocks the sun, and your fate will be in sight."
"I will," he says. "He won't return from this campaign. I've made sure of it."
He almost expects soldiers to come rushing in at those words, or for a thunderclap to echo across the sky. Luca Blight will die. He hasn't let himself speak that before now. And now that he has-well, the path Leknaat talked about must have solidified.
"But there is still another source, and with it, another shadow, the one that chills your shoulders and haunts your steps, and you cannot face it without turning from the path set out before you."
"The war itself. I know."
Leknaat lowers her head into the wind, and says nothing.
The wind's making his skin prickle. He hopes it's the wind. "That's what you meant, isn't it?"
"There is more to war than a beginning and an end," she says.
"I know," he says, grits his teeth so he won't shout. "I have to stop it from beginning again, don't I?"
Leknaat begins to fade, or the wind begins to thicken. "What you must do is known only to you. What you will do is destiny's province.
"What do you mean?" he asks, but by the time he's finished speaking, she's gone. The flap of the tent flutters in the breeze she left behind, and when it falls still, there's no sign she was ever here at all.
What he will do, she said. Jowy shakes his head. There's only one path before him now. He just has to keep walking it, that's all.
---
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on to part five
.