54 Hugo
Hugo
As the sun set, Hugo and Evangeline stepped away from the room where Willow sat with Eira, the spell taking even longer than
Hugo could have imagined. They ended up in the kitchen of the tavern itself, with scarred wooden countertops and a soup on
a low simmer on the woodstove. Hugo helped himself and Evangeline to a bowl of the creamy broth, and he dug around the cupboards
to find a loaf of bread for them to pick at.
“You’ve been nothing but a bundle of nerves since she went under,” Evangeline said, her voice quiet and exhausted. Her bowl
of soup sat on the counter, her remaining hand holding the spoon that she gingerly swirled in the bowl.
“I’m worried this won’t work, or that the witch will somehow take away more memories,” Hugo said plainly, the soup warming
him as he took a slow spoonful.
“The Iron Empire propaganda really did work on you, huh?” she said. “You’re in love with a witch, and still can’t shake the
idea that witches are inherently evil and willing to harm us and each other. What makes you think Willow would benefit from
hurting Eira?”
Evangeline was right. His fear was grounded in nothing apart from what Lord General Kerrigan had taught him. Witches were dangerous, their magic brought harm to Astra, and for that, they needed to die.
But how could he have believed that when his own daughter was a witch? Hugo hadn’t known Eira could do magic but . . . Lord
General Kerrigan had admitted that he had known, that potions witches were exempt for Eira’s safety. Before the uprising, before Eira disappeared, Hugo had heard the viscount say that all of this was to protect
Eira, but then the power had gotten to him. It was the only explanation that made sense.
“Did you fall into the rebellion because the viscount was leading it?” Evangeline asked. “He was one of my family’s most trusted
advisers . . . I couldn’t believe it when I found out what he’d done.”
“One day I caught him leaving the house at an odd time. I followed him, worried he was going to put himself in danger, and
then . . . he simply went to a meeting spot. A dozen people were already supporting him, and the way he spoke . . . I didn’t
grow up in a good place, you know?”
Evangeline watched, slowly eating her soup as Hugo spoke.
“He talked about a world where everyone in Astra was successful based on merit and not on who they were born to, and . . .
he’d become like a father to me. He’d taken a chance on me in his home, a poor orphan that had had to claw my way out of the
hell I was raised in. It was hard to not believe him.”
“Charisma gets you far, that’s what my mother always told me,” Evangeline said as she looked at Hugo, the silent part as loud
as could be. I’d still have both of them, if you hadn’t helped, rang through Hugo’s head loud and clear. He knew what she wanted to say, what she had stopped herself from saying.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I may not have killed your father with my own hands, but it was me who kept him in his chambers for
Lord General Kerrigan.”
“I don’t forgive you,” she said after a long pause. “But I am glad you’re with us now . . . because right now we’re three people against an empire, and we need all the help we can get to win Corisia over to our side.”
“Agreed,” Hugo said.
He didn’t expect Evangeline to forgive him; he didn’t expect anyone to. He had so much more work to do before he deserved
any sort of forgiveness.