“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she hissed. “After all we talked about, after all you promised me, you just turn around and throw your life away, for Diarmuid’s bastard son?”
She was visibly shaking now. Farris raised his hands in submission, with the words ‘calm down’ upon his lips. He opted for another strategy, however.
“He’s just a young lad, Nicole. He’s frightened of all of this, just as much as we are.”
“How does that concern us? How does this concern you?”
“It doesn’t,” said Farris, “But it’s the right thing to do, Nicole. We can’t let him go alone.”
“You’re right about that. But he’s not travelling alone now, is he? Padraig and Aislinn already volunteered to go.”
“And I had to, too.” Farris sighed. “I don’t know why. I… I can’t explain it.”
“By Sin’s Stones, Farris, you better try.”
“This… this is bigger than me. Bigger than us. I fought alongside Argyll for so long, for a cause I truly believed in. And I still believe in that fight. But this one is even bigger, Nicole. You have to understand.”
She snorted. “Oh, I understand very well. You’ve spent too much time living among Humans. Their warped sense of duty, honour, whatever they want to call it, has rubbed off on you.”
“Now that’s not very fair. I’ve no love for the Crown.”
Nicole gestured towards the door. “You just announced your allegiance to the Crown, in front of everyone! You’re choosing to put your life on the line for the immortal bastard of the man you conspired to murder!”
“Don’t say that.”
“The world we knew is gone, Farris. Who cares who you may or may not have poisoned in the old world?”
“Not that,” said Farris. “You call Fionn a bastard, as if it’s an insult. But Simians don’t marry, so doesn’t that make us all bastards too?”
“No.” Nicole folded her arms. “It’s a Human term, you know that. They’d see his birth as a symbol of Diarmuid’s lust.”
“Perhaps they would have,” said Farris. “But tonight, they saw him as something else. A chance to end all of this. If there’s a chance, even a tiny one, that we can defeat Morrígan, I’ll take it. I’ll swear allegiance to any king, Arch-Canon, or god if it means we end this war.”
“And what if there’s no chance,” said Nicole. “Would you still fight then?”
“Yes,” said Farris.
“Then you are a fool, Farris Silvertongue. I have nothing more to say to you.”
She went to leave. Before she could, Farris said, “Garth. Garth would have done the same.”
Nicole turned. Her brow was narrowed. She bared her fangs. “Don’t you dare put words into the mouth of the dead. You have no way of knowing what he would have done.”
“I do,” whispered Farris. “He did as much back in Saltworks. He sacrificed himself to let us escape.”
Nicole didn’t respond to this. Knowing he had hit a nerve, Farris pressed on.
“Do you remember what his last words were. He told me to protect the king, no matter the cost. In his last moments, he knew what really mattered the most. I failed him. But now… now I have a chance to make up for it.”
“Then go,” Nicole whispered, still facing away. “And you better get some rest first.”
As she left, Farris closed the door and returned to bed. But he did not heed Nicole’s advice. Instead, he lay awake staring at the ceiling for hours into the night, until the sun’s light filled the room.
Chapter 12:
Hunter’s Den
Today, I went against all my own self-interests and agreed to travel to Mount Selyth with Firemaster Fionn. No, King Fionn, First of His Name, and Twentieth Incarnate of Seletoth. I failed to save his father when the Silverback opened his throat. Furthermore, I betrayed him in my duties as captain of the City Guard, letting myself become seduced by corruption.
Everything I did then, I did for Aideen and our unborn child. But I never should have put my own love for her above my duty to the king. If not for my failures there, we perhaps would have had Farris in chains instead of an agent of the Crown.
But the Simian continues to surprise me. He too agreed to travel to Mount Selyth with us, despite him having little love for the memory of King Diarmuid. If he plans to betray Fionn, he’ll find his blood upon my sword.
No, it is unfair of me to make such conjecture. Farris led the charge to dig up the dead, and despite our protests at the time, we did find Fionn, alive and breathing, when all reason dictates he should have died with the rest of those who were engulfed by the earth.
Furthermore, if not for Farris Turncloak, I would have been buried there too.
Journal of Padraig Tuathil, 20th Day under the Moon of Nes, AC404
***
Hundreds of soldiers flooded the Academy Courtyard the following morning, making their final preparations for the journey home. Amidst cries of commands from their lieutenants, Humans and Simians worked in sorting the remaining arms and armour, separating those they’d leave behind from those worth taking. Others rolled barrels of provisions across the courtyard and loaded them onto wooden carriages. Even the horses and elk tied up by the ruined castle gates seemed to share the same resigned relief that lay upon the soldiers, as thick as the snow that fell upon them.
Fionn shivered as he pulled his cloak tighter across his chest. Most of his own preparations had already been made, for he had very little to bring.
You’ll need armour, said Sir Bearach. Just because you can’t die, doesn’t mean you can’t be rendered incapacity by a punctured lung.
The knight had a point, but Fionn preferred to see those more suspectable to death protected from it before he was. Across the courtyard, Padraig, Aislinn, and Farris tended to their mounts: horses for the Humans and an elk for the Simian.
