Chapter Twenty Four
Fool By Morning

Vera stirred in her sleep. Dreams came hard, and heavy. At first they were dreams of loss, and that made sense, in a way. Powerlessness. Pain. Watching it happen, over and over again. Trying to do something different, and none of it mattering. Flaveo dying. There was a part of her — maybe it was Aesling — that seemed to be aware of all of it. That this was grief. That this was normal.

That didn’t make it easy. Watching Flaveo erupt like a candle, sparks striking his skin like a match until he was fire and lightning and white, bright power. Over and over and over again. His smirk as he looked at them one last time, his fate already sealed. 

It was happening again. She fought off the Demons, even harder this time. Every time, every time she hoped that if she fought harder, if she was just a little faster, just a little stronger, she would be able to stop him. To save him. But she heard his voice again. Telling her to run. She refused. Shouted that she wouldn’t let him, but then Rubicus and Clarus dragged her away as she saw him drink his doom, vials shattering in gravel and sand. 

Then fire. 

The next dream was different. It was quiet. Calm. It was Dark. Hollow. Worse. She was in an empty field, at night. There was nothing in any direction. No grass grew. The world if the Cavean wasn’t stopped, of course. A pillar of flame was better than this. Everything was cold. The world was cold. And in the distance, there was that laugh, that laugh that made her remember that time she’d ventured into a cave and something had stirred in the darkness, something slick and wet shifting against stone, stones bouncing off the cavern floor in infinite echoes. It was a humorless sound. 

It was everywhere. The laughter of the Cavean, its horrible, malicious glee, rang through her head until it tore her heart from her chest and she could only try to run with legs that refused to go, claw at the air powerlessly with with arms that had no strength. 

“Vera.”

She cried as she opened her eyes and realized she was awake. It was still dark. But not as dark. Not as cold. Not as hollow. It was the healthy, normal darkness of healthy, normal night. In the back of her mind, Flaveo was still dead, but it was… well, it wasn’t okay. It wasn’t going to be okay for a very long time. But it was… accepted. A thing that had happened. A truth about the world. Not a horror to be fought. 

She sat upright. “You were having a nightmare,” Aesling said. “Several, in fact.”

“I was,” Vera said. “I’m sorry if that was upsetting for you. I don’t want you to have to deal with that every time I close my eyes.” She wondered what it’d be like if Aesling ever had nightmares. Would they show themselves in her head? Like nightmares? Or would she experience them too? Or would Aesling suffer in silence? 

“I don’t dream,” Aesling said. “I sleep deeply, as the trees do. But do not worry. Your nightmares are not… intrusive. But I thought it best to let you suffer them anyway, if only to grant you the rest you needed. Was that all right?” Despite her general confidence, and the sense of protectiveness she exuded, Aesling seemed insecure, unsure. 

“Yes. It was.” Vera swung her legs off the side of the bed and stretched. “Don’t fret, Aesling, if I didn’t trust you with my well-being, I’d have picked an earlier time to say something. Thank you.”

Aesling chuckled, and was about to say something — Vera could feel the intent coming off of her — but then stopped. “Vera, look.” Vera looked around the room. It was dark, but her eyes were quickly adjusted to the gloom. She assumed it was one of Aesling’s little gifts. Nothing stirred. Nothing that she could tell would have put the Nymph on edge. 

“What is it? I don’t see anything,” Vera said. “Is there a threat I’m not seeing?”

“No,” Aesling said, “it’s Clarus.” 

“I don’t see him,” Vera said, and then suddenly realized what that meant. They’d laid down together. She stood up and got dressed as quickly as possible, shoving her feet into her boots and barely lacing them. Stepping out of the room, she looked around. Caerella was asleep against the far wall, her head resting on her bedroll. There was no-one else in the room. “Caerella,” Vera said. As she expected, the woman’s eyes opened immediately. She barely moved. 

“Rubicus is standing guard,” Caerella said as if by explanation. She looked at Vera. “Clarus isn’t with you.” Vera shook her head, so Caerella went from sitting to standing, seemingly without going through the steps people usually took in between. “Vera, I need you to answer a question, and I’ll need you to be honest with me.”

“Anything,” Vera said, biting her tongue. She got the feeling this question wasn’t going to be a pleasant one. She didn’t look forward to it. 

“How smart is this prince of yours?” Caerella said as she began strapping her battle-axe to her back. “If I look outside the door, what are the chances that Clarus is out there, keeping Rubicus company?”

Vera had to think about that for longer than she cared to admit. Clarus was a clever man. He had a quick wit and a sharp mind to go with it. He was also, when it came to heroics, as subtle and considered as a rockslide. “Low, Caerella. The chances are low.”

“I thought so. Grab your gear.” She shot Vera a glance. “And lace those boots, or you’ll break your ankle.” Guiltily, Vera bent down and did as she was told while the woman stepped out. She heard Rubicus swear loudly, immediately afterwards shushed by Caerella. A second later, the large mercenary barrelled into the room, his jaw squared and thunder and lightning coming off of his brow. 

“Your man is trouble,” he said as he grabbed his pack and threw it onto his back in a single move. “Let’s go save his sorry ass.” Despite herself, despite her worry and fear, despite everything, Vera couldn’t help but crack a smile. 

They needed Clarus, of course. To save their land. Their people. Maybe even the world. But even then, neither of them had hesitated for even a moment. Clarus was in trouble. Clarus was going to be rescued. There was no deliberation. Just a series of factual statements. She grabbed her own pack, and the four of them, counting Aesling, stepped out of the building, and suddenly Vera realized she didn’t know where Clarus had gone. He probably hadn’t used the front gate. She looked over there. It was barely standing, and even from where she stood she could see the stirring of shades in the shadows in the rubble. 

“Focus,” Aesling said. “You do know where you went. I have sharpened your senses. Focus them. See. Smell.” Vera closed her eyes and opened them again. The night’s darkness seemed to give way to… depth. Depth in shadow. Like there were more hues of shadow she could discern between. Details she hadn’t noticed before. Okay, she reasoned, he likely used the back door of the building. Then what? 

Walking around the house, she found a set of footprints in the dirt, and then knelt down. She smelled his scent, ever so slightly. She looked up. “I think I know where he went.” Caerella raised her eyebrows. 

“Lead the way.”

Vera followed her nose, and the trail, as best she could. Clarus had gone a little ways off the road, dodging between the buildings to avoid being seen by any stray Demons, but closer, ever closer to the wall. Once there, the damage done by Flaveo’s fire really became clear. Even here, hundreds of yards away from the epicenter, the stone slabs had shifted and tilted, leaving enough space between them for someone with determination and some serious grip strength to climb their way up to the top.

Clarus had made his way to a tall building, a watchtower or firehouse. It leaned against the city wall. Vera looked up. “I think he used the building to get up on the wall.” 

“That’s what I would’ve done,” Caerella said. “Dumb, but not stupid.” With that enlightening statement, the three of them began the climb. First up the ladder to the roof of the building, and then the much more arduous task of working their way to the top of the city battlements. The outer walls of the city were high, but not as high as the inner rings. 

They took a moment at the top of the wall to catch their breath while Vera made sure they were still on his trail. His scent was faint, but it was still here. And then she saw it. Some sand disturbed there, more recently than anything around it. Her senses were razor sharp now, and she was grateful Aesling didn’t do this all the time. She could already feel the headache coming on, the constant hyperstimulation of her vision, her hearing, was starting to make itself felt. 

“Come on,” she whispered. “He can’t be far.” It was true. Below them, inside the walls, in the city streets, she saw shades moving, but not many. Flaveo’s sacrifice had not been in vain. There weren’t that many left. Too many to take on, maybe. And if the Cavean was unleashed on the inner city, it would quickly rebuild its army. But for now, they moved unseen. And the Cavean couldn’t be far. 

They followed the movement of the Demons, as a point of reference. It took her a moment to notice it, a moment of deliberately unfocusing her eyes, to notice it. The Demons moved… not exactly as one. It was more like wind through a field of grass. Some moved first and then others, further down the street, and then those even further moved. Then the first stopped, and then the next and so on. Always with the slightest of delays. 

She pointed at a point a bit further. A large meeting hall, close to the inner city gates. All movement of the Demons started there, and then ebbed outwards. “There,” she said. 

“I see it,” Caerella said. “Ruben?”

“Aye,” he said. “Not far. Think it’s there? Think it’s got your prince?”

“No,” Caerella said, “if it had the Prince, it’d be outside the gates, taunting the defenders with his corpse. And if they were fighting, the Demons would be rushing in.”

They snuck closer, while Vera scanned the streets. Clarus wasn’t on the wall up ahead anymore, that much was certain. But if he wasn’t there, where was he? She stopped at a rampart. There was a rope tied around one of the merlons. “He went down here,” she said, and looked down. It disappeared into the street below. No Clarus. 

“I’ve found your prince,” Caerella said with a voice weary from a life of hardship, decades of fighting and traveling, and at the moment, Prince Clarus. She pointed. Vera followed the direction. 

She saw the large gathering hall. She saw Prince Clarus, sneaking on the rooftop. She saw Prince Clarus, drawing his sword. Then, Prince Clarus, in all of his beauty and grace, uttered a battlecry and crashed through the roof.

“I love that man,” Aesling said. “Go save his life.”

Vera, Caerella and Rubicus all looked at each other. Without another word, Vera grabbed the rope, and threw herself off the wall, on her way to keep the man they both loved so much from heroically dying at the hands of the Cavean.

Her boots hit the ground with a thud she felt all the way up her spine, and she broke into a sprint. The snarling of Demons already bounced off the walls of the street around them, and they were starting to close in. She wasn’t going to get there in time, she knew, but that fact wasn’t going to keep her from trying.

Elamimax

I love Clarus so much he's so stupid. 

how does he stack up against other men in fiction, do you think?