Chapter 24
“And you had no idea Cutthroat Buck was alive and followed you here?” Lord Valin asked.
Bastion did his best not to sigh.
He stood, again, in the council room between two puddles of sunlight. It was a sterile contrast to the hot springs, the memory of which still lingered, stinking of sulfur and blood.
Lords and advisors sat at the long tables, eyeing him like they couldn’t decide if he was a turnip or a potato. There were more today, and they’d asked him the same questions in different forms a dozen times. Every answer elicited a series of whispers that did nothing to temper Bastion’s annoyance.
“No,” he managed gruffly. “I, and many others, saw him fall into the sea the night of the siege. It’s a miracle he survived.”
“And how did you know where to find him?” Lord Edward asked.
Bastion lifted his toe to tap it. Hanniel’s eyes tracked the movement, and Bastion suppressed the urge to follow through. The last thing he expected was to do this twice, and he’d grown tired of the bureaucratic bullshit.
He pulled his Account out of his breast pocket and flapped it for them to see. “I didn’t. I went to retrieve my Account. He was there.”
“Why was your Account at the hot springs?” Lyanthis asked, his tone dripping with contempt.
“Ulla had it, and she was at the hot springs.”
“And why did my daughter have your Account?”
Anger crept into Bastion’s voice. “You know why.”
Lyanthis’s lip curled, his fangs gleaming while the rest of the room bristled.
“Answer the–”
“Haven’t you interrogated him enough, Lyanthis?” King Torvald asked. He sat on the dias, still as a statue with his fist pressed to his temple.
Lord Valin turned towards the king and said, “Your Majesty–”
The king held up a hand, and silence fell like a curtain. He stood and stepped off the dais. King Torvald was a big man, intimidating even when he was smiling.
He wasn’t smiling now.
“Bastion, you are one of the most skilled fighters to come through our ranks in my lifetime. Many of us observed that personally yesterday.” Torvald gestured to the room.
Nods followed the remark, even a begrudging one from Lyanthis.
“The knight's code is built on bravery, honor, duty…” Torvald paused.
His expression held the gravity of an executioner. “And honesty.”
Those two words cleaved Bastion’s heart. All his annoyance and impatience evaporated. He was once again a scrawny child, standing in the practice yard with a new batch of recruits, wondering when he was going to be thrown back onto the streets.
“The war council and I will discuss this new development and make our final decision. Is there anything else we should know?” the king asked. Then, more softly, “You won’t get another chance.”
Bastion swallowed, his mouth suddenly bone dry. He thought about the imp and how every time he opened his mouth to bring him up, he bit back the words. Shame might have prevented Bastion from saying anything before, but now… he still didn’t know if it had been a figment of his imagination.
He looked around the room, at the faces watching him, most of them unfriendly. Their opinions already teetered on a knife's edge. He was damned if he did and damn if he didn’t.
“No, your Majesty.”
The king gave him an assessing look. “You are all dismissed.”
Bastion barely heard the scrape and shuffle of men rising and leaving the room. Torvald dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Then, he returned to the dais.
Heart pounding, Bastion left before he became a piece of flotsam in the sea of counselors. In the hall, he collapsed onto a marble bench. Endre joined him, and together, they watched the council members filter out. Many side-eyed him as they departed.
“You’ll get your knighthood,” Endre whispered. “You’ve more than earned it.”
Bastion shook his head absently. He should feel guilty for withholding information, yet again, but he didn’t, and it perplexed him. “Have I?”
An imperious voice prevented Endre from answering.
“Bastion, a word!”
They both turned as Lyanthis approached. His eyes raked over them, arrogant even with royalty. He arched an eyebrow and inclined his head.
“I need your Account.”
Bastion looked down at it, still clutched in his hand. He smoothed the warped cover, then extended his hand. Lyanthis’s nose wrinkled in disgust as he took it. It bloomed in his hand, no longer a neat, flat little thing.
“What did you do to it!”
“Saved your daughter,” Bastion said. A sneer cut across Lyanthis’s face, and Bastion awaited the inevitable cutting remark.
But the headmaster simply stared at the Account. When he met Bastion’s eyes, he said the last thing Bastion expected. “You deserve your knighthood.”
Bastion’s brow quirked. He glanced at Endre, who appeared equally shocked.
“By all accounts, you have acted as a knight should, and Etruria would be lucky to count you among her protectors.”
Incredulous, Bastion replied, “Thank you.”
“However,” Lyanthis continued, “while you may be good enough for Etruria, you will never be good enough for my daughter.”
The declaration should have bled him like a knife to the throat. In the past, Bastion would have internalized it as a reflection of his character and his honor. Now, he pressed his lips together and nodded slowly.
“That’s for her to decide,” he said.
Lyanthis’s eyes narrowed. Disapproval dripped off him, but Bastion didn’t care. The only opinion that mattered was Ulla’s.
Finally, the Yvri turned and walked away.
Endre smacked his shoulder. “See! Even Lyanthis thinks you should be a knight!”
Bastion shook his head. Not in disagreement, but in the way of an exhausted parent.
“You’re forgetting I don’t have a Godmark,” Bastion said.
“A Godmark does not make a knight,” Endre replied, his tone low and confident. “In the last few weeks, you’ve already done more than most of the knights in those Accounts! The title will be yours, and you can commission your new sword. Today, if you want!”
Reflexively, Bastion’s hand went to the pommel of his blade. He glanced down at it, rubbing his thumb over a familiar groove. His unremarkable, standard-issue royal guard sword had served him well over the years.
He hadn’t been prepared for what seeing it in Buck’s hands would make him feel. How the pirate had used it to harm when Bastion only wanted to help. Now, with it back at his side, it felt like an amputated limb had been restored. The thought of another sword seemed like sacrilege.
Bastion sighed.
Suddenly, waiting for the council’s verdict seemed absurd.
That sleeping part of him, the one that woke in the belly of The Basilisk, and again when he fought Buck at the hot springs, stirred.
He couldn’t access it fully, but he knew with all his soul that it had something to do with the purpose that had driven him his entire life. Something much greater than a title.
He gripped the hilt of his sword and whispered, “I’m already a knight.”
“What?” Endre asked.
Bastion stood abruptly. “I have to go.”
The prince grabbed his wrist. “Go where? They haven’t finished deliberating!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Bastion said. He lifted his blade with a smile. “I don’t need another sword. This one is enough.”
__________
He didn’t know why, but no place felt right except the Rainbow.
The roar of the waterfall held a measure of solitude, but it did little to calm the torrid thumping of his heart.
In the center of the bridge, he leaned on the rail and looked out over the city. For a long, long time, he stared at the distant sea, glittering in the noonday sun.
Bastion closed his eyes and focused on the bond.
He imagined it as a shard of moonlight, and it shimmered like the refracted light in the mist that gave the Rainbow its name.
In his mind’s eye, it beckoned him, as alluring as faerie lights leading him off the beaten path.
He’d glimpsed where that path could lead, and he wanted what lay at the end.
But, she might not come.
Bastion sighed and ran his hands through his hair. He’d escaped the clutches of their enemy, faced insurmountable odds during a siege, and even the king’s council. How could he do all that and still fear her absence? Her silence.
He shook his head. He was a knight. One of the pillars of knighthood was taking responsibility for his actions, however well-intentioned he’d believed them to be. And he was desperate to see Ulla one more time, even if it was to say goodbye.
The only thing he could do was push a thought towards her, like words on the wind, and hope she heard him.
I’ll wait on the Rainbow.
There was no response. No answering flutter. No hint that the thought reached her.
He may as well have been shouting into the abyss of his own soul.
But Bastion could wait.
The afternoon wore on. Dozens passed him, coming and going between the palace and the university.
Condensation collected on his eyelashes and dripped down his neck to gather along his collarbone.
The rhythm of his heart remained high, tapping insistently against his sternum like a knock at the door.
The palace-side guards changed shifts, and his stomach began to growl.
It swooped every time someone stepped onto the bridge and it wasn’t her.
As the sun kissed the horizon, he scraped his finger over a faded spiral carved into the railing.
It reminded him of the pebbled texture of her hand in his when they danced together.
Had the bond begun that night, from that single moment of mutual loneliness and understanding?
The sea turned a molten gold that held no warmth, the rays of the sun stretching towards the cliffs and gilding them. Iridescent rainbows darted through the mist, each one elusive and beautiful.
He was surrounded by splendor, and it meant nothing without her.