Chapter 21
CHAPTER 21
L eofric still was not certain what to believe, but Cosmo’s certainty that Ozias lived was strong enough to convince him, for a time. They spent the next week combing every crevice of Mount Hiru, and found nothing. They even returned to the gaping cavern below, pressing their hands into the stone, digging through the snow, searching for any evidence that might point to where Ozias had gone. It grew harder by the day for Leofric to imagine a world in which Cosmo was right, imagine a world in which his long-lost brother would appear for a moment, only to vanish again without a trace. He tried his best to pretend though, for Cosmo’s sake. He imagined what he would do, if he heard Hamalcar’s voice in the shadows of the mountain years after his death, and that made it a bit easier for him to indulge Cosmo’s search.
But only a bit. After a week, Leofric grew restless. He now felt certain that if Ozias lived, then he did not wish to be found. However, he felt he could not say this to Cosmo. How long could they keep this up? They must return to Papia soon. They had no word of His Highness and Auro, no word if the King had recovered from his illness, or if other threats and shadows had emerged. Leofric felt blind on this mountain top, blind and beyond useless.
“I can hear you thinking,” said Cosmo snappishly one morning.
“I’ll try to keep it down,” Leofric snapped back, harsher than he’d intended.
Cosmo took a deep breath, and it was as if Leofric could see him crushing his temper, crushing his frustration, dousing the fire behind his eyes. “It may be time to abandon this search,” said Cosmo, and Leofric could hear the heartache and loss weighing every syllable. “For now.”
Leofric did his best to conceal his relief. “If you think it’s time,” he said evenly.
Cosmo cut him a look, proving that he hadn’t been as outwardly patient as he’d hoped. “If Auro’s theory proves correct, I can return here to search for him once we’ve delivered Kryos’s grace to Papia. If I no longer have to rest at the end of summer, there’s nothing to stop me from pulling up every root and pebble of this fucking mountain until I find him.”
He spoke in ringing tones, but Leofric heard the unasked question there: will you return with me? It was a question Leofric was afraid to answer. He had not considered what would happen between Cosmo and himself upon their return to Papia, had not allowed himself to consider it. The few times the images in his mind’s eye threatened to invade, he’d imagined Cosmo resuming is residence at Lapis, fucking and drinking his way through autumn, winter, and spring until he was called upon to perform his duties at the advent of the following summer. Now, there was the image of Cosmo wandering alone in the wild, searching for traces of a brother who may not even be there, wasting away, a wraith of grief.
It was hard to say which was worse, and Leofric was not ready to examine how he would feel about Cosmo no longer beside him. Cosmo had been an incessant thorn at his side, but one can get used to anything, even thorns. Leofric had hoped to resume his position at the head of His Highness’s royal guard when this quest was at its end, but that was before. Before the mountain, before he’d spoken with Laela about their futures, before Cosmo. While he had come to resent the aimless lingering on the mountain top, it had allowed him to forestall asking and thereby answering these questions.
“Perhaps His Highness has left us some message in the town below,” said Leofric, offering a safe rail to clutch in this dangerous conversation. “A rider, perhaps, to the magistrate’s offices.”
“Perhaps,” Cosmo allowed. “We can stop there, and refresh our supplies for the return journey to Papia.”
Leofric gripped his shoulder. Something seemed to be required of him in this moment, but for the life of him he could not determine what it was. However, the simple touch seemed enough, for now. Cosmo covered Leofric’s hand with his own, giving his fingers a squeeze.
It did not take them long to reverse the journey down the mountainside, and Leofric watched Cosmo carefully out of the corner of his eye for its duration. He seemed more or less himself, but perhaps a shade grimmer. Leofric understood that, at least, if not the rest of it—Cosmo had fulfilled his quest. He would return home victorious, in a sense. No one could doubt his devotion to their family, once Kryos’s grace sat in the vault beside Cedras’s. But to Cosmo, it was not enough. He still burned to find Ozias, to bring home not only hope for one brother, but redemption for them all. It was a sweet notion, but sweet notions and daydreams could easily lead a man astray.
If anyone knew that, it was him.
When they reached the city at the base of the mountain, a few pennies in the right palms saw them to an audience with the city magistrate. Leofric judged the man to be honorable enough, for a politician, at any rate. “You are Leofric?” He asked, when he met with them in the lofty marble office on the second floor of a well-appointed domus.
“You know of me?” Leofric asked.
The magistrate nodded. “Aye,” he said. “I received a rider, with an urgent message. You were expected to return through town several days ago, were you not?”
Leofric exchanged a glance with Cosmo. “It was the initial plan, but our business in the mountain took longer than initially anticipated.”
“Well,” said the Magistrate, “if you don’t mind saying, it might have been wiser to adhere to your initial schedule.” He waved the note, which showed a broken wax seal.
“The seal is broken,” said Leofric, stunned. Then he frowned. “How is it that you have broken it, when the missive was addressed to me?”
The magistrate was not impressed by Leofric’s threatening tone. “When you did not return near the appointed time, I exercised my lawful right as Magistrate to ensure the safety of my people. This city pays its due to the King of órnio. An urgent letter comes from a foreign kingdom, I would be neglecting my sacred oath not to be aware its contents.”
“How dare—” Cosmo stepped forward, positively snarling, but Leofric held up a hand. This situation was delicate. Leofric needed the letter, needed to know its contents. Besides, he and Cosmo were two men against a garrison of soldiers of the city watch. To move against them would be an act of political aggression.
“Apologies, Magistrate,” said Leofric in icy calm tones. He gave a grudging bow. “I forget myself. I appreciate your holding the message safe, until our belated return to the city.”
This seemed to mollify the man, and he handed over the parchment.
“You have my thanks,” said Leofric, bowing once again.
Once outside, they returned to the municipal stables, where they’d paid to shelter their horses while they attended their business with the magistrate. “Well?” Cosmo prompted. “What does it say?”
Leofric’s blood pounded in his ears, Cosmo’s voice fading into a dull, incessant hum in the background. His heartbeat ratcheted up, as if it fought to escape his ribs. He read the letter again. And then, a third time, trying to make the words different. No matter how many times he read them, they remained the same.
“Leofric?” He jerked from Cosmo’s timid touch and thrust the letter at him.
L-
Sorex has fallen ill. He may not survive. We need you.
Come at once.
- Laela
Leofric’s hands shook when he took the parchment back from Cosmo. “Six days ago, this arrived,” said Leofric. “Six days.”
“What?”
“This letter has been sitting in that man’s office for a week, while you had me running about chasing ghosts!” Leofric spat the last word out, all the doubts he’d kept carefully guarded exploding out of his mouth.
Cosmo looked as though he’d been slapped. “ Ghosts ?”
“Yes,” said Leofric, pacing now. “We both know Ozias is dead and gone.”
“I saw ?—”
“You saw what you wanted to see, what would alleviate your guilt,” said Leofric, unthinking. “If Ozias lives, you don’t have to take ownership of anything you’ve done in the past.”
“That is…” Cosmo said in an oddly flat voice. “Unkind.”
“But true!” Leofric hardly even knew what he was saying. He gesticulated wildly with the letter crushed in his fist. “And now my family has paid the price for your selfishness!”
“I care about them, too.”
“ Please, ” scoffed Leofric. “You don’t even care about your own family, how can I expect you’d care for mine? I can’t believe— anything could have happened—Sorex could be…he might be…”
Cosmo braced his hands upon his hips. “Leofric, you know I would have postponed the search for Ozias had I known Laela and Sorex were?—”
“It matters not,” said Leofric, finally getting his wits about him. “I must go at once.”
“Of course,” said Cosmo, without hesitation. He hurried to the stall where he’d put up Hestia just that morning. “You have Kryos’s grace?”
Leofric barely heard him, moving like a man in a dream, and time seemed to skip. All at once, he sat astride Lyra’s saddle, his pack slung over his shoulder. Cosmo was a few seconds behind, trying to get one foot into the stirrup of his own mount.
“You’ll only slow me down,” Leofric heard himself say, answering the question Cosmo had not asked.
Cosmo’s face hardened, the twist of his mouth more like a sneer than his usual irreverent grin. “You have my brother’s grace.”
“Aye,” said Leofric. “And after I help my family, I’ll return it to Auro.”
“Of course,” said Cosmo angrily. “Why wouldn’t I trust you to hand over part of my brother’s soul? You’re only taking it, and leaving me behind.”
“Unlike you, I can be counted upon to keep a promise.”
“Apparently, you can’t,” Cosmo shot back. “You can’t even protect your own family.”
The words cut true, cut deep. Cosmo was right, and his accusation was like a knife in Leofric’s gut, twisting, stabbing, turning. He couldn’t look at Cosmo one more second, so he put his heels to Lyra and urged her to a faster gait. He blew past a startled Cosmo and took the road from Hiru City at a hard gallop, and he refused to look back.
Cosmo stood in the stables, staring forlornly after Leofric with one foot in the stirrups for so long that when Hestia finally snorted and brought him back to the present, he toppled over and landed on his backside in the dirt.
Fitting, he thought as he rolled about like an insect, trying to disentangle himself. At last he freed his foot from the stirrup, if only to guide Hestia back to her stall so she could browse the food on offer. Once he removed her bridle, he looked around himself, at a loss. Leofric had taken with him some undefinable part of Cosmo and left behind a wide, gaping hole. Empty and achy, and it drew his attention and focus like the crater left behind by a missing tooth. He simply could not stop tonguing it.
Cosmo had, after days of searching with no evidence to the contrary, largely given up on the idea that Ozias was actually hiding somewhere on the mountain. Some essence of him must have clung to Cosmo and the others when he’d left this world, preserved by their grace and his own godsblood. It wasn’t the most logical explanation, but truly, most of Cosmo’s life with his brothers defied logic, so it seemed as good as anything.
Unfortunately, however, it seemed that he’d hitched his wagon to the hope that Ozias had simply been living hidden in a cave for four hundred years in his attempt to save face with Leofric. Frowning, Cosmo considered his options.
First, he could re-saddle Hestia again and return to Papia, tail between his legs. No, not entirely—he’d still recovered Kryos’s grace. He felt a tiny, weak ember of pride in his chest. He had at least done that; his return to Auro wouldn’t be entirely fraught with humiliation.
Second, he could return to the mountain and continue his search, cold and alone, and most likely doomed to fail.
To be honest, neither one of those options sounded appealing. He looked again down the dirt lane that led through town, in the direction Leofric had traveled. Cosmo’s third option was to trail pathetically after Leofric in hopes of overtaking him on the road, trying to cut through the layers of guilt that had sent Leofric fleeing for his home and his family, hoping to be welcomed, embraced, forgiven. Loved? He rejected that out of hand, recoiling from it with a self-flagellating chuckle.
That option was absurd, mad. A child’s fancy. What was it Leofric had said? Four hundred years old, and still a child. What a fool Cosmo was. A selfish, childish fool.
As he realized Leofric, his father, and all his brothers had perhaps been right about him all along, Cosmo realized something else. He had a fourth option.
He could leave this stable, walk through the main streets of this city, find a tavern, and get absolutely obliterated with drink.
Hours later, Cosmo was warm, surrounded by laughing revelers, and well on his way to ensuring he barely remembered this night come morning. It was not the most elegant, nor the most long-term, solution to his problems, but it certainly did the trick in the moment. Musicians played on a small stage erected in the hall, and the people of Hiru City really knew how to put on a party. He liked this city. It wasn’t a port, but it reminded him of Papia’s salt market all the same. These people were loud, raucous, earthy. No one here imagines themselves better than anyone else, Cosmo thought, that much is certain. Most of the revelers were travelers and at a glance Cosmo could tell they came from all walks of life, passing through on their way to some place or other. There was an ever-changing flow of people to talk to, people sharing stories, playing cards or dice, buying drinks, or dragging one another into shadowy corners of the hall, or to the rooms upstairs, for play of a more intimate sort.
Normally, Cosmo would have been among them. He’d booked a room upstairs, paying the innkeeper extra to avoid the question of when he’d be checking out. Cosmo could stay here indefinitely, and with his mug full of wine and one of the kingdom’s most famed musicians on the stage, crooning and playing his lyre, he thought perhaps he’d never leave.
He’d sent Kryos’s grace with…well. He’d sent it on to Auro, anyway. Maybe Hiru City would become Cosmo’s new home. It seemed a jolly place, all told. If Auro’s theory about breaking the curse was correct, Cosmo never had to return to the temple in Papia. That was a strangely sobering thought. While Cosmo had done his level best to avoid thoughts of his family for four hundred years, he had in actuality been bound to them, never able to truly be free.
Now, he was. Cosmo didn’t even particularly care if Kryos never restored his full power. He could carry on his duties as the god of summer well enough without the full strength of his grace, and it had only ever caused pain—both his own and that of others. The point was that he never had to lay eyes on his brothers, ever again—their cold, unfeeling statues or the flesh and blood versions. He never had to set foot in the temple that was like waking up each year in a tomb, with only ghosts for company. The pain of the past scourged away, with the passing of years, never to trouble him again. That was what he had wanted wasn’t it? Freedom? His own life?
Cosmo drained his mug and signaled to the barman to refill it once again. If someone had asked him, even a few short weeks ago, the answer would have been yes, but since waking up this year, his summer had been an endless churn of guilt and longing, fear and doubt.
Other things, too, said a voice in the back of his mind. He stuffed it away, draining yet another goblet of wine. The more Cosmo drank, the more he thought staying in Hiru City a splendid notion. The music filled the hall, louder and more alluring with every sip, and Cosmo rocked back and forth in his seat, swaying and wishing he had someone to dance with. Leofric would never dance, he thought. He would most likely give Cosmo a searing lecture on how frivolous and worthless music was.
Something bubbled up his gullet at the thought, a tearing sensation deep in Cosmo’s chest. He lurched to his feet, knocking his empty cup to the floor. He stumbled, drunker even than he’d thought, and cast his eyes about the crowd, searching for someone, anyone with whom he might be able to spend a few hours forgetting. Preferably someone short, curvy, and blonde, with soft hips and breasts. Someone… different, his brain supplied.
As he scanned the crowd, Cosmo had a difficult time pulling faces into focus. The people talked and danced and moved around like multicolored blobs, or perhaps like one large seething mass. Goodness, but he was drunk. Cosmo didn’t think he’d been this drunk in decades, which when you thought about it was really saying something.
It almost didn’t matter who, he reasoned, staggering off in a direction in which the blobs seemed especially bright and cheerful. He just needed… someone. Anyone. Else.
He made it three steps before colliding with something solid, and Cosmo found himself soaked with wine and crashing into a table. The music screeched to a stop, replaced by the cacophony of shattering ceramic, plates of food and an entire tray of full mugs going sailing across the room. Before Cosmo could form the words to slur an apology, several pairs of hands grabbed hold of his arms and yanked him back to his feet. He detached the coin purse from his belt and tried to offer it to whomever he’d so offended. Someone accepted his offering, but he never saw who, and the rough handed men carried him toward the door to the inn.
The crowd cheered, shouting and hissing. Before Cosmo could protest, someone flung wide the door, the ones carrying him gave an almighty heave, and all at once the rutted dirt road was flying up to meet his face.
A pair of sandaled feet crossed into Cosmo’s field of vision, and someone squatted down beside him. He spat out a mouthful of dirt and tried to call their face into focus, but what he saw was impossible.
Cosmo must have been even drunker than he’d thought, because right before he lost consciousness, he stared into the face of a ghost.