A follow-up to this. Takes place right before chapter 8x. As always, heavily Lano Canon ™ (though maybe not as much as the first chapter honestly). 1,835 words.
Roy was holding his conference in the dining hall. Perhaps
the throne room would have been more appropriate, but it had yet to be cleaned
from the signs of battle. Ostians were more frugal than most other Lycian residents,
but Ostia Castle had long been held to be unimpregnable. Comfort and confidence
had allowed for the collecting of no few items less than easily cleaned or
repaired, and a few things that would need to be replaced entirely.
Lilina had spent all the previous day and most of this
morning overseeing the clean-up. It was not until Sue excused herself to attend
Roy’s war meeting that she realized one was being held at all. His lack of
inclusion stung, all the more for the fact that they had shared the same early
training in matters of war. His audacity at holding such a meeting in her own
home without so much as consulting her stung even more.
Lilina intended to make sure he did not forget her again. She
had washed the signs of captivity, battle, and labor from her features, and
dressed in a crimson mantle and a kirtle of finely woven maroon wool, and wore
only minimal ornamentation – nice enough for Lady Ostia, practical enough for
travelling the realm. The Sacaen cut tunics and trousers that her late mother
had favored would have been even more practical, but Lilina knew that she must
remind those in the castle of her status – and she would not do that by emphasizing
her slightly foreign blood.
She opened the double oak doors leading into the dining room
without bothering to knock. It was, after all, her castle. Everyone present –
no small number of knights and mercenaries as well as the merchant Merlinus and
Sue, the sole Sacean representative, looked up in surprise. Roy’s first look
was irritation at being interrupted, but at the sight of her it changed to
acute embarrassment.
In the past Lilina might have smiled at that expression. She
did not because she remembered her surrounding and injured dignity. This time
Roy was not a young boy caught stealing cookies before dinner, but a military
commander holding a meeting without his host’s consent. Childhood friend or
not, Roy had overstepped his bounds and he was well aware.
“What, then, are our plans for the immediate future?” Lilina
asked as she inserted herself at the head of the table, right next to Roy. Sir
Marcus was gallant enough to make room for her, even if his master was not.
Roy got over his embarrassment quicker than he would have
even a few months ago, no doubt a benefit of being in charge of a large force. “The
Lycia Alliance Army has to make a stand against Bern somewhere,” he said. “A
fortress like Ostia would be useful, but I don’t like the idea of fighting near
so many civilians.”
Lilina nodded. If they stayed here, the castle’s very imperviousness
would work against them. Bern could simply trap them. The castle could hold out
for an impressive amount of time, if it came to a siege. But it would be harder
to stand by while the invading army took out their whims and frustrations on an
innocent populous. That Ostia would be a battleground, Lilina had already
accepted. It came from having the most available land. But the fewer of her
people were on it, the better. “What are we facing? What are their numbers?”
Roy paused for a moment, a slight hesitation that Lilina
would not have noticed had she not known him as well as she did. “It would be
safer for you to remain here, to hold Ostia for us while we lured them away.”
“I am not staying behind,” Lilina said. Once before she had
allowed herself to be persuaded in such a way, and due to that she could not
even be with her father when he died. She had many reasons for wanting to go,
but that was the one that was likely to get the result she wanted. “They
murdered my father, Roy.” Her use of her father’s memory was meant for
manipulation, but that did not make her grief or rage any less real, and Roy
knew it.
His gaze softened somewhat. “I’m sorry,” he said, as he had
said twice before.
“I don’t want apologies,”said Lilina. She placed her hands
on the table and leaned forward. “I want revenge. I want to build a monument to
my father. The largest funeral pyre Elibe has ever seen.”
There could have been an awkward silence there, but Marcus
stepped in before it could begin. “Spoken like you father would have, at your
age,” he said, and inclined his head in a brief bow as an apology for interrupting.
He may have been amused, or dismayed, or reproachful, but none of that showed
on his face. Marcus was as ever a true knight, and never allowed his personal
feelings to color his work. “Too, we could use your abilities. Our forces are
heavily bent towards physical attacks.”
Roy took the exit Marcus had provided him. “If you truly
wish to come, we’ll be glad of your help. Ostia is the best military resource
in Lycia and we’ll need that to equal Bern.” He hesitated again. “But it will
take more than mere numbers or skill to turn the tides. They have dragons on
their side, real dragons from all we’ve seen and heard.”
“But how could that be?” Lilina asked, all political
maneuvering temporarily fleeing from her mind. “We defeated them a thousand
years ago!”
“That is not entirely true,” said Merlinus, inserting
himself into the conversation for the first time. He had always been slightly
stuffy and self-important, and Lilina had largely ignored him. Now, from the
way that everyone turned to face him with surprise, everyone but Marcus, she
could tell she wasn’t the only one.
“Do you know something about the dragons?” Roy asked him. “Something
more than what you told me before?” Lilina heard an echo of her own discontent
in Roy’s voice and realized, for the first time, that perhaps she was not the
only one being shut out by those who thought they knew better.
The merchant offered and apologetic shrug. “It is not
something your parents wished you to know, and so I have kept my silence all
these long years,” he said. “Now, however, I believe it is wiser for you to
know. When they were not much older than you, Lord Eliwood, Lord Hector, and
Lady Lyndis fought and defeated a dragon that was summoned here from elsewhere.”
A wave of shocked murmurs rose almost involuntarily around
the table. Marcus stepped in to stop the meeting from straying into chaos. “Merlinus
and I were both present for that venture, close enough to see how it very
nearly ended in failure. At the time your parents had the help of several
divine weapons. To go into battle against dragons with less would be foolish.”
“Lord Hector mentioned the divine weapons to me, but he said
nothing of that,” Roy mused. “In fact that was why we turned to Ostia in the
first place. He said there was a weapon to fight dragons here.”
Lilina did not waste time wondering why her parents had
never told her about the dragons. Thinking over things they had told her she realized
that, in a way, they had done their best to prepare her – making sure she got
training and practice not only in running Ostia but also in fighting, and
making sure she was well-versed in the lore of both Elibe as a whole and Lycia.
“Ostia is the home of a shrine to Roland, a shrine that
contains his holy sword Durandal,” she said. “It is located not far from the
capitol. That must be the weapon he mentioned.”
“I remember,” Marcus said. “Lord Eliwood once used that very
sword.”
“Then we should retrieve it, first thing,” said Roy, taking
charge of the meeting again. “I will want a fuller briefing on what happened in
those days later.”
“I would like to be present as well,” Lilina said.
Roy nodded. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t
suppose you know where the other divine weapons are?”
“Not exactly,” Lilina admitted. She tapped her finger
against her lips in a gesture that anyone who knew her would take as a sign
that she was thinking. It only took a moment for her to consider what she knew.
She shrugged. “The divine weapons were used by the eight heroes. It’s likely
that each nation has custodianship of one. At the very least there are no more
in Ostia.”
Sue spoke, for the first time from what Lilina could tell. “There
is one such weapon in Sacae, but it’s far away and likely possessed by the
traitors who attacked my clan.”
Roy frowned. “Then we’ll have to deal with that, as well as
the others, later. We should make Durandal the priority. Only then can we turn
ourselves to researching the remainder.” He turned to face Lilina. “How soon
can you be ready to lead us to this shrine of Roland?”
“I’m already packed,” Lilina said. She had anticipated
having to follow the army rather than being accepted as one of them. Now she
was grateful for her foresight. “I can leave as soon as you can.”
“And the sooner the better,” Roy said. “We’ll leave at dawn.
Make sure everyone is ready to move.”
That was the end of the meeting. The members of the rag-tag
Lycia Alliance were well-used to working together by now. They immediately
scattered to attend to their own needs.
Roy caught hold of Lilina’s sleeve as she back to rise, so
she settled back and waited for them to be left alone.
“I’m sorry,” he said, again. “I didn’t mean to leave you
out. I just wanted to protect you.”
Lilina smiled and patted his hand where it rested near hers
on the table. “I’ve had enough of being protected. I don’t want to wait at home
to learn whether I’ve lost any more people I care about.”
“I’ll be happy to have you with me,” said Roy. “I mean that.
All of this…it’s so much sometimes, I don’t know how I’ll pull it off. Having
your support might make it more bearable.”
Lilina rose from the table and offered her hand to him. Roy
took it and allowed her to pull him to his feet. “You’ll always have my
support, Roy,” she said. “As long as you remember to ask for it.”
“And,” he said with a laugh that was no less genuine for its
undercurrent of strain, “if I don’t remember to ask, you’ll make sure to remind
me.”
“Indeed. Is there anything I can do to make the departure
smoother?”
“As a matter of fact-”
They left the room together, talking as if nothing, not
doubts, not politics, not death, had interrupted their long friendship.
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