17.

A world bathed in reds

“When I first saw you, I almost thought you were Kali.”

Dominic paused for a moment, taken aback by the comparison.

“Do we look similar?” he asked.

“I obviously did not mean it like that, you little piece of work,” she replied, completely abandoning formalities. “I cared deeply for her, but…”

She gave Dominic a pointed look.

“I wouldn’t have wanted either of you in my house.”

“You invited me here, Your Grace.”

“I now see that it was a lapse in judgement.”

She rubbed the bridge of her nose.

“Dominic,” she said, looking up to meet his eyes, “I know we are not friends. Neither of us are here to get along. So let’s just speak as if this is a give-and-take game. One for one.”

“I don’t know what I can gain from you,” he replied.

“Ha!”

She leaned back, spreading her arms.

“I am the Duchess of Alobast, child,” she said. “What is there that you cannot have?”

Her mana, vast and dense, swirled like a whirlpool through the room.

“Can you find me a way off of this continent?” he asked. Her smile immediately faded.

“You really know how to irritate me,” she responded. “If anything, I should be asking you that.”

He hadn’t expected a positive answer. If she had had any breakthroughs in the last thousand years, she would’ve already sailed out herself.

“How much can I ask for?” he said.

“Anything, if it’s reasonable,” she replied, shrugging.

Dominic thought for a moment.

“Then, I’d like to borrow the power of the duchess in the future,” he said. “If I request your help at any point, I’d like you to accept it.”

“Fine,” she responded, “but I will have the final say in whether or not it’s worth my time.”

Dominic nodded.

“I’m okay with that. What did you want from me?”

Her expression darkened a degree.

“I told you, earlier, that you reminded me of Kali,” she said. “But I know that you are not the same. I never understood Kali well in the first place, so I need you to tell me—”

For some reason, her expression seemed a little pained when she spoke.

“—what are you?”

Her voice did not waver, but her mana did. A speck of doubt. A fleeting thought that perhaps, within her vast well of knowledge, there was something she had never been told.

Dominic was silent, thinking of how to reply. There could have been plenty of answers. He was a human. He was a healer. He was good at magic. He had killed the viscount. But he knew he couldn’t say those. None of it mattered.

He glanced up at the duchess. Behind her, the mural on the wall stretched out, a grand scene that encompassed half of the world. Families mourning turned into children playing in renewed streets, a desolate cemetery turned into a wide, grassy plain overlooked by a noontime sun—the grand expanse of life and earth as it mourned and moved on. Greens and blues and greys, surrounding the duchess’s sharp, dark silhouette. The colors complimented her deep purple skin and black clothes. It was a harmonious picture.

Dominic knew what was on his side, then. He had noted it when he came in, what the mourning and the funerals and the scenes of loss after the fact were connected to.

Red. Red as blood and red as fire and red as passion and red as anger as it clouded the eyes of the vengeful soldiers who had lost unspeakably much, and would only seek out further destruction. Red as the rust of broken weapons, buried in the dirt, forgotten as the battlefields were cursed and abandoned, flaking away as time claimed their crumbling blades. Red, fading to brown, then finally fading to foggy black. The smoke burned into the sky, and it colored the families’ mourning clothes.

Behind Dominic was the war.

He smiled wryly to himself. Somehow, his position felt natural. Perhaps the duchess, too, thought it fit. Eyes the color of the flames which burned and raged through cities. Hair the color of the sunless, eclipsed sky. Who else but him could be part of this picture?

“Duchess,” he said.

“Yes, child?”

“Do you know what language I’m speaking?”

The duchess studied his face as if trying to predict where he was going with this, then frowned when she found herself unsure.

“I’m not familiar with it,” she admitted. “Despite my age, I can’t know every single language.”

She thought for a moment, replaying his voice in her mind.

“It sounds like a strange derivative of archaic Hesian,” she guessed. “Perhaps an isolated dialect from the south?”

“It’s from east of here,” Dominic said. “It’s spoken widely in the place where I’m from.”

The duchess wrinkled her brow.

“That’s not possible,” she said. “This is already the east coast. And I know all the languages around here.”

“There is more to the east of Hesia than the ocean.”

The duchess froze, and slowly her glare turned piercingly sharp.

“You wouldn’t dare to lie to me about something of this magnitude,” she said.

Dominic remained calm in spite of her anger.

“You know that I am not lying,” he replied.

“I can’t guarantee you aren’t manipulating your mana.”

“It’s up to you to decide.”

She clicked her tongue in annoyance.

“Irritating,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “So irritating. The truth you speak of is impossible. No, in fact…”

She frowned deeply.

“I just don’t like it. How revolting that you all still exist out there. I’ve made peace with my cage, and now after a thousand years you’ve come and stepped onto my land.”

“…If it comforts you at all,” Dominic said, “there will be no others following me.”

“How can you know that?”

“I know.”

In his gut, Dominic understood that nobody else on his ship had survived. No one else would be coming. Not the same way he came, at least.

Neither of them spoke, but the very stillness of the air seemed to be echoing between the wide, painted walls, and it filled his ears.

“Damn.”

The duchess voice finally rang out through the room, her mana settling again. She sighed and leaned her head back against the couch, one hand covering her eyes.

“How exhausting,” she remarked. “I’m too damn old for this.”

She snuck a glance at Dominic between her fingers.

“Why did I even listen. I should have just snapped and gotten rid of you quickly.”

“I’m grateful that you did not.”

“If I was still 300, you would’ve been a smudge of ash on the floor already.”

“All thanks to your infinite grace.”

“Impertinent little jerk.”

The duchess heaved another long sigh, then sat back upright again.

“What a joke the gods have made of me,” she said. “Dominic, I’m going to ask one more thing of you.”

“Go ahead.”

“Alright. Just sit still.”

Before he could question why the duchess had such a mundane request, she flicked her hand in front of his face, a monumental gust of mana gathering and exploding instantly from her fingertips.

It blasted forward violently, surging over him in a split second as if to erase him from the room. But Dominic reacted immediately, resisting it without even thinking, and just as quickly it shattered—shards of glowing purple mana bursting everywhere and falling like snowflakes, dissipating before they hit the floor.

The powerful wind that had been made by the blow slowly settled.

“Yeah,” the duchess said. “Just like Kali.”

Dominic ran a hand through his hair, straightening it out again after the sudden blast.

“May I know why you just did that, duchess?” he asked.

She chuckled, though he didn’t see any reason for her to be amused.

“I just wanted to see something,” she replied. “Dominic, do you have any idea how powerful of a mage you are?”

He frowned.

“I’m just a little above average,” he said.

The duchess laughed out loud this time, the sound reverberating between the wide walls of the room.

“Just a little!” she shouted. “Is this humility, secrecy, or are you truly not aware?”

She was holding her stomach, wiping tears from her eyes.

“Child, you’re stronger than I am!”

Dominic sat frozen as she laughed, her voice pulsing through the room so loudly that he nearly felt the couch beneath him shake.

“Oh, go, go, quickly get out,” she said. “The gallery will be torn apart if you stay any longer.”

He paused for a moment, studying her strange expression, before quietly standing.

“I will take my leave then,” he said. He doubted she even heard him.

“Ah, I must prepare,” she mumbled, still giggling between words. “Chaos will be coming again to the continent.”

Without waiting for a proper farewell, he stepped forward onto the circle that had brought him there earlier. It activated immediately, a white light engulfing him. In the split second before he was forcefully moved from the room, through that sheen that had risen from the circle to surround him, Dominic once more saw the mural on the wall that had been behind him.

He had remembered it slightly wrong. There was one section that hadn’t appeared in his mind when he had imagined it—one that split the entire scene of war and violence and red into two. Down the center of the wall, there was a chasm of white and light green, in such contrast to the reds and blacks of the battles raging around it that it looked like a geode. Grass sprouted. A river flowed. Blossoms blew on a cool breeze. Flowers were tended to and lush vegetable gardens were grown. There were great temples of white stone and priests in beautiful gold robes.

In the middle of war was worship.

The circle activated, and Dominic was taken away from the room.

∞

He quickly fetched Aster, a feathery bundle of nerves, from the office and left the palace, declining the offer to take the gate directly back to the border again. Neither of them had ever traveled through Hesia before. It would've been too pitiful if they went to the Alobastian capital but didn’t even take a single step outside. He was determined to waste time exploring the city today, even if it meant taking the long way back. Even if it meant dealing with whoever was following them right now, and had been tailing them from the moment they’d left the castle.

A stench like algae and stone, but also a bit of lavender. Only one presence. Dominic bit into the chocolate bread Aster had ordered for both of them, and kept track of where it was.

He was sure the duchess hadn’t sent anyone after him. She had had more than enough of him. Someone keeping an eye on the duchess’s movements had probably decided to put a tail on her newest visitor out of caution. A lord of her standing was bound to have enemies loitering around. He licked the last of the chocolate off his fingers.

“Aster,” Dominic said.

“Yeah?”

“Somebody’s following us.”

The boy froze.

“Like, a creep?” he asked.

“No, like a spy.”

“Oh,” he said, relaxing again. “Is that…a problem?”

“I doubt they’ll do anything unless provoked,” Dominic replied. “But don’t you want to test that?”

He pointed to the ring on Aster’s finger.

“This might be a good chance.”

Aster glanced down at it. It shimmered silver in the afternoon sun. He seemed to hesitate for a moment before clenching his fist and looking back up.

“Okay,” he agreed. “Let’s do it.”

“You’re not afraid?” Dominic asked.

“There’s nothing to fear with you around.”

He was slightly surprised by the answer. He knew Aster had taken to calling him ‘brother’ lately, but he hadn’t thought that he was trusted this much.

“Are you sure?” he repeated. “You still have time to decide.”

“No, I want to try it,” Aster replied, determined. “Let’s go.”

Dominic paused for a moment, then nodded.

“I’ll go first,” he said, turning around. “You catch up to me and come down when you’re ready.”

“Alright, brother.”

He set off through the throngs of people, making his way to a side street. The presence followed him and not Aster, as he’d suspected. He wound through the maze of back alleys, pinpointing their location, slowly snaking his way closer to it. The tail didn’t want to be found, keeping a set distance. Dominic let a thread loosen from his glove and slither through the street.

He called it back the moment it found its mark. A shout sounded from behind him as a bird tangled in string was forcefully pulled from the top of a building, changing back into a woman midair. She landed heavily on the ground.

She angrily tried clawing the thread off of herself, her arm still wrapped in it. Dominic pulled again, bringing it back to himself, the strings unraveling so quickly that they cut into her skin like blades.

“Agh!”

She held her arm, glaring up at him. With her good hand, she drew a knife from her belt and charged.

Dominic drew his as well. He hadn’t used it yet since he’d taken it from the lighthouse, but perhaps this was a good time to test out his new tools as well.

The blades clashed against each other. There was no need to question the effectiveness of black iron. In an instant, there was already a deep chip on the edge of her knife, the metal sliced away. Her hand recoiled back from the impact.

“What?”

She was surprised and indignant. Dominic calmly waited for her to regain her footing and charge back again.

Every time their blades met, another chip flew from the edge of her knife. He let himself be pushed, stepping further into the alley, until he finally felt a flicker of mana from above.

With a stronger swing, a huge flake was torn from her blade, and she stumbled backwards at the force. Dominic quickly made space between them.

“You can try now, Aster,” he said.

From the sky, Aster landed softly on the ground in front of him and held up his hand, ring glittering.

“Please do something,” the boy mumbled.

He squeezed his eyes shut as the woman ran at him with her jagged knife.

“Anything!”

There was a muted sound of impact, and then silence. Aster opened his eyes, and found that her blade had gone straight through Dominic’s outstretched palm, reaching from over his shoulder to protect him. The tip of the knife was inches away from his face.

“Ah…” Aster withdrew his hand, pressing at the still dormant ring as if blaming it, watching the blood drip from the edge of the blade to the ground.

“Sleep,” Dominic commanded.

The woman collapsed immediately, falling slack to the ground. The blade slipped out of his palm with her.

“Heal.”

Aster stared as the wound closed, then frowned at the ring completely unresponsive on his finger.

“…Are you sure this works?” he asked, pouting.

“The circumstances it requires probably aren’t this simple,” Dominic replied. “It doesn't like me in the first place, so maybe you need to be alone.”

He pointed to the woman still lying unconscious on the ground.

“I can wake her up again. Want to try it alone?”

“Oh, no, no need…” Aster laughed nervously. “Maybe some other time, brother.”

Dominic shrugged.

“Sure,” he said. “We should head back to Helwin before she wakes up, though.”

Aster looked up at him with pleading eyes. Dominic didn’t need to read the mana to know what he meant.

“…If there’s anything you still wanted to eat, just get it. You can eat on the way back.”

“Let’s go, brother!”