Chapter 23 Mushrooms #2
After running his fingers over the blank space beneath Luc’s name, Rolan wandered back to his bedroll and flopped down upon it.
“So what was your wish?” Rolan asked. With the fire’s glow warming the cave walls, he couldn’t even fear the night outside. “Did it have to do with your wife and son?”
Luc’s expression went flat, but not before Rolan saw the surprise flash in his eyes. He turned away, silent for so long that Rolan began to feel uneasy.
“It’s just that…” Rolan cleared his throat. “If it were me, I’d probably wish for my ma to come back, you know? She got sick and died when I was really little. I don’t even remember what she looked like.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Luc said quietly. “Nothing can bring back the dead.”
Rolan looked down at his boots, at the scuffs and stains that had been on the leather even before he’d first put them on. “What was he like? Your son, I mean.”
This time Luc’s silence stretched until Rolan thought the man had fallen asleep. The Arcanist’s eyes were closed, and though he sat upright, he was as still as stone.
Swallowing, Rolan curled up on his bedroll, facing away from the man. He shouldn’t have asked. Now Luc would go into one of his stormy silences, and it would go on for days, and—
“He loved books,” Luc said quietly. “He loved to draw. He was a quiet boy, my Mylas. Kind and patient with everyone, especially cats. Oh, he loved cats. Kept six of them in his room. Goddess, the smell.”
Mylas. Rolan mouthed the name, imagining this boy who’d died in a fire, leaving his boots behind for Rolan to inherit.
He sounded like a bit of a bore, not that he could tell Luc that.
Books and cats indeed. He’d probably needed a friend like Rolan to show him how to climb and run and steal guards’ lunches. Poor kid.
“I was supposed to be alone that night,” Luc went on.
“We had a little house by the river. Quiet and discreet, to escape to when the palace became too oppressive. I would go and fish and be alone. But that day they insisted on coming with me. Mylas had read a book about fish, and he wanted to come identify the species in the river.”
Rolan waited, breathless and awkward, unsure if he should say something.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I went out to fish by moonlight,” Luc went on. “I fell asleep still holding my rod. And I woke to flames behind me.”
Rolan felt a chill run down his spine. He sat up and saw that Luc was still staring into the fire, motionless.
“How did you come by the scar on your face?” asked Luc, so casually that Rolan almost answered.
Then he caught himself and scowled.
Luc poked the fire. “I can ask personal questions too, boy.”
“I fell when I was a kid,” Rolan lied.
“Careful about keeping a secret.” Luc glanced at him. “It might try to kill you one day.”
Rolan’s scowl deepened. It wasn’t a secret how he got his scar. Someone else knew the truth, and that was enough to stop a Cryptic from sprouting in the corner.
He pointed a finger at Luc. “What about your wish, the one you made when you killed a noble Cryptic? Ain’t that a secret?”
“Isn’t that a secret, and no, it isn’t.”
“Does your brother know?”
Luc glanced at him, hoisting one eyebrow. “No, he doesn’t.”
“Why’re you out here fighting Cryptics, instead of living it up in your brother’s palace? You’re older than him, aren’t you? Your beard is longer, anyway.”
“I am older. And I was in line to become duke after our father, yes. But after… the fire, I didn’t much feel like being a duke.
” Luc raked his calloused fingers through his hair.
“So I took up the Arcanist’s sword. It’s the king’s law, you know.
When a duke has two sons, the elder goes on to inherit his title, and the younger must go and be an Arcanist. Abdicating meant we had to switch places. ”
“Really? Why?”
Luc shrugged. “The world needs Arcanists.”
“More than crusty old dukes,” agreed Rolan. “No offense to your brother.”
Luc’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, you meant offense.”
“Yeah. I did.” Rolan grinned. “To be fair, he was going to let me be chucked into his prison forever and all time.”
Luc tossed another stick onto the fire, then lay back on his own bedroll, his eyes reflecting the flames. “Because you wouldn’t give up your pa, as I understand it.”
Rolan drew his blanket up, his fist knotting the fabric. “I’m no snitch.”
Luc glanced at him, a furrow between his eyebrows. “You’re a loyal son.”
“That’s right.”
“And does your pa deserve your loyalty?” Luc’s question came softly.
A prickle ran up Rolan’s spine, the way it did when he felt he was being watched by one of his pa’s men, or when he sensed the city guards would be lurking around the next block.
It was the feeling he got when he was approaching a trap.
“Why do you care?” Rolan asked. “You after Hoff’s old job or something? Hunting criminals as well as Cryptics?”
Luc said nothing. He went back to staring at the fire, stony and silent.
Feeling angry and not knowing why, Rolan burrowed into his blanket. “I’m going to sleep. I need rest, assuming you’re going to have me chasing my own butt all around the forest tomorrow. Letting me poison myself and saying nothing.”
Luc did not reply.
With a disgruntled sigh, Rolan drew his blanket over his head.
He let himself consider a world where Luc had gone on to become the duke of Crisanth and wondered how the world would have been different.
He wondered if he and Mylas might have been friends.
He wondered what it was that Luc was seeking out here in the woods, as his brother had accused him of doing. He wondered what Luc’s wish had been.
Sleep was long in coming, and when it finally did, he dreamed of a glowing unicorn in a field of flowers, and of his pa beating it with his cane until it turned into a heap of white ashes and gusted away on the wind.