Days Past #2
It was a letter of enlistment into the king’s army. His name was signed at the bottom in his own script.
A great breath moved through him as he rubbed his brow.
His mind was troubled not with concerns for his own wellbeing or the perils of war.
His worries were reserved for how it would break Keira’s heart for him to go, and more to know it was Ignatius who had arranged it all.
No matter what she said, she loved the old man.
Worst of all, this was Caspian’s fault. If he had only listened to her. If he hadn’t been such a fool.
Yesterday as they’d spoken in the stables, their future had seemed so open, endless pathways stretching before them. Now he held his future in his hand. Definitive. Decided.
It was a long while before Caspian climbed down the ladder, the pack already slung over his shoulder. The red wizard was standing in the stable doors, waiting for him. The sight held no great surprise. Caspian realized he had even been expecting to find him there.
They stood eyeing each other for a long moment.
“The war offices are three miles south of here. You are expected to report by midday,” Ignatius said at last.
Caspian nodded slowly.
Ignatius paused, as if thinking of something more to say. “Remember what you have learned here,” he said. “Always trust your intuition.”
Caspian moved to step around him, but Ignatius stood in his path, raising a hand.
“Let her sleep.”
Caspian eyed the old man. “She’ll never forgive you for this.”
“Perhaps, but it is for the best, for both of you.”
Indignation stopped him in his tracks. He had planned to leave here without allowing his anger to get the better of him, to at least move through this terrible situation with his pride intact.
But to say that this was the best for him?
“Sending me away to the front is what’s best for me?
Risking my life every day, worrying that Fate won’t bring me back to the woman I love, that’s what is best? ”
Ignatius remained impassive in the face of his mounting anger. Caspian wasn’t sure what else he expected, or what might have been better, but somehow, Ignatius’s cool demeanor only made everything worse.
Insults and bitter comments flurried through his mind, but Caspian kept his mouth shut. They wouldn’t fix this. The old man would suffer his own consequences for this choice.
“You are a strong young man, and intelligent,” Ignatius said to his back. “You’ll do well. When your service is done, you will have opportunities and respect, a soldier’s pension from the crown. You will have something to offer her.”
Caspian turned.
“Her place is in the Arcanum. Let her finish her studies. When you return, when you are both ready, you can build this fantasy of yours. I will not stand in the way.”
He held the wizard’s gaze for another moment before he fixed his pack on his back and made his way down the road.
Keira woke much later than usual. Her head was still heavy as she lifted herself out of bed.
As she made her way downstairs, something about the hour seemed wrong.
Usually, if she overslept this way, it meant missing breakfast. Yet, the table was still set with a steaming meal.
That seemed terribly charitable of her guardian, a characteristic she had never thought to attribute to him.
Even more for such a gesture on a morning when she had suspected him to be rather put off.
Stranger than strange, Ignatius remained in his seat by the fire, watching as she came down. His dark, unruly brows were not furrowed in disappointment or judgment or even anger. Something far worse glimmered in his eyes, stealing her breath away: guilt.
She stopped halfway down the stairs, frozen. “Where is he?” Keira choked out as dread tightened around her throat.
“This is for the best,” Ignatius said, voice guarded, measured.
Keira felt the tips of her fingers curling into claws as the anger mounted in her. “Where?”
“Caspian is on his way to the war offices in Erith.”
“What did you do?” Green veins spread beneath her skin as furious tears trailed her cheeks.
“He’s been enlisted. When his service is complete, he may return if he wishes.”
Keira stared down the old man bristling for several moments before she snapped towards the door. The moment before she reached it, fire engulfed the wood in a sudden burst of heat.
“Let me pass,” Keira growled, turning on Ignatius, who still hadn’t so much as stood from his chair.
“A clean break would be best. He is likely nearly there by now—“
“I don’t care what you think is best!” Keira snarled. “You’re a monster! You took me from my parents, but not him. I won’t let you take him from me.”
Keira pushed through the flames, shielded by her own magic, and emerged from the other side with only minor burns. She did not feel them at all.
Ignatius did not rise to stop her. In fact, he did not move so much as an inch as Keira took her horse from the stables and galloped down the path to the road. Perhaps he was a monster, he considered. At least in this case, he was a well intentioned one.
Somehow, Caspian knew from the moment he heard the thundering hoofbeats it was Keira coming after him.
He had already stopped in his tracks and turned to meet her as she emerged from the crest of a steep hill.
She dismounted in a simple and fluid movement and came bounding down toward him.
Her dark hair was shining with notes of chestnut brown in the summer sun.
The beauty of her, the knowledge that soon it would be gone from his life, struck him like a knife.
As she collided into his arms, the dagger twisted within him, yet he held her closer still.
“Come on,” she said at last, drying her eyes. “We’re going to find a ship and put this all behind us.”
“Keira,” he said slowly. “If I run now- You know the penalties for deserting. I don’t want to be a fugitive for the rest of my life.”
“We’ll cross the channel, make a life there,” Keira said stubbornly.
“I can’t,” Caspian said, holding her tighter. “I can’t desert. I want to have a life with you, but an honest one, one with honor and freedom and everything you deserve. And we can have it. We just have to wait a little longer.”
“Caspian, this is insane.” She pulled back to look at him. “You didn’t enlist. It was him! It was a trick! You shouldn’t have to-”
“But I do,” Caspian said shortly. “It’s done, Keira.”
She gazed up at him with wide, broken eyes. “What if you don’t come back?”
“I will,” Caspian promised with a kiss to her brow. “I will. My service is only a few years, and when it’s done, I’ll be a soldier- respectable. I’ll have money and-”
“I’ve never cared about that,” Keira argued. “I just want to be with you.”
Caspian sighed. “You know that’s all I want too.” He put his hand on her cheek, guiding her to meet his eye. “You know that this isn’t the way that I wanted our story to go, but we can still make something out of it, something good.”
Keira shook her head, but said nothing.
“When I’m gone,” he began, “I want you to promise me that you’ll still take your exams, that you’ll go to the Arcanum.”
Keira’s eyes grew wide in a flare of anger. “I will not! Don’t you see all this- it’s him controlling me! If I go, then- Then he gets exactly what he wants!”
“Part of you wants this too. I know it,” Caspian said pointedly. Then he softened. “I want you to go. I don’t want you to stop living waiting for me. I want you to go to Silverfell and show them all who you are.”
Keira’s teeth clenched. Caspian was right.
She didn’t want all the work, the endless hours of study and spellcraft to mean nothing.
She’d always been driven through her studies to discover the limits of her power and over the years it had only grown.
Who knew what untapped wells of magic lingered within her that the Arcanum might help her uncover?
Not to mention that, for all intents and purposes, she was as much an orphan as Caspian was and with as little means.
If she didn’t go to Silverfell, what else would that leave her but staying in the tower?
An utterly untenable idea. Naturally, she could go across the channel as they’d planned, but their dream held little luster to her if he was not there.
What was the point of having them both scattered to the winds?
“I promise I will return,” Caspian vowed again. “And when I do, we’ll go wherever you want. We’ll build whatever life you want. Just promise that you’ll be there.”
Keira raised herself up and pulled him into a deep embrace, fueled by the spirit of the loneliness to come. “Of course, I promise. Of course.”