Arc II, Chapter 49

Convincing Heero that I needed to go alone took well over ten minutes. Our whispered, heated debate on whether we should trust Dorothy Catalonia's words was enough to draw the attention of the others, and then I had to spend another 15 minutes whisper-arguing with Quatre and Wufei about the same damn thing. By the end, I was striding away with five pairs of eyes watching me and their reluctant blessings.

I don't know who they were kidding; I could already tell by the scowl on Heero's face that he'd ordered Trowa to discreetly follow me, i.e. use his weird abilities to spy on my conversation with Relena.

The eastern terrace was deserted, but only because a couple of guards stood watch on either side of the inner balcony doors and forbid idle nobles from entering. They half-bowed to me as I pushed through the doors, implicit approval on their shoulders, and I entered the empty terrace with a face full of fresh air.

My time in the Capital had been nothing but a series of surprises. The reaction of the servants, the interaction between me and my family members, and now this revealed relationship with the female lead- all of it had never been mentioned in the novel. The novel's version of me had no relationship to the female lead, a perfect example of a background character used to color in the male lead's tragic backstory. If he'd had a hand in the reveal of Relena's background, then she should have at least known his name.

The idea that this was somehow the result of my interference in the plot had crossed my mind, but given what I had been busy with in the Yuy province, the timeline didn't match up. According to the story pushed by the royal family, this had all happened years ago - long before the greenhouse fire. If I really was the childhood friend of Relena, then this only cast more confusion and ambiguity on the current circumstances.

My revolving door of "friends" that reported to me the dirty gossip and inner workings of the court made me wonder- was this all necessary for me to have an iron claim on the social network here? Business had its place in the realm of people like me - the gentlefolk of Sanc's noble circles - but there were times when the information was just too good, too specific. There was also the expectation in their eyes as they shared with me their findings, like I would know how to take care of it and resolve the issue.

What exactly was my role here in the Sanc Capital?

A light shuffle of movement could be heard from behind me, so I turned in order to sketch myself into the appropriate degree of a bow. Relena - Princess of Sanc - only smiled with sanguine wryness as she waved off my perfunctory greeting, drawing up next to me by the railing of the terrace. She moved with more grace than I expected; it wasn't that she lacked manners or basic balance, but Relena from the novel did have a tendency to get abducted or put in peril to a sometimes absurd degree.

This Relena, however, had none of the delicate maiden undertones; she walked with a confidence and assurance that spoke of maturity. The smile I'd first seen on her face back when she was telling the court about our childhood friendship was gone, instead replaced by one smaller but seemingly more natural for her pretty features. I felt my heart twist at it, could see why Heero from the novel had fallen for such a woman.

"Duo..."

I couldn't help but flinch at her voice. Relena's expression fell a bit at my reaction, the corners of her lips briefly ticking down before she rallied herself once more. "I understand you're upset about my..."

She trailed off, struggling to explain. I had no idea what she was referring to specifically - perhaps her calling me out here unprompted? Her singling me out for the exorbitant imperial gift? Or...perhaps the implication of her own designs on Heero, should I go through with using that gift to divorce him?

"Duo, I had to," Relena finally stated, looking me in the eyes with determination. "I needed the power and influence of the Crown. I can handle it now."

I kept my mouth shut, wary of not responding right and clueing her into my complete confusion. Relena took my silence as further dissatisfaction with whatever she was going on about, squaring her shoulders as she turned fully to face me.

"It's unreasonable to expect you to take care of everything, especially after..." Relena's words trailed off with gritted teeth. She looked away, her eyes narrowing in inexplicable misery, going silent as the thoughts churned behind her eyes. Despite how she didn't continue, I was starting to understand with budding clarity to what she was referring.

My heart seemed to drop in my chest. Relena was arresting in a way I had not expected, and she drudged up emotional reactions in me that I could not fully grasp the meaning behind; what I had mistaken for me being curious but cautious of the female lead was actually turning into a wary sort of guilt. However, this was a feeling I could not understand the root of: Relena and I weren't supposed to have any sort of connection or relationship. The story the royal family had shared about our childhood friendship had seemed like a fabrication because I knew the plotline from the novel.

So why did Relena give me the same feeling that Solo did?

"What's done is done," I said, almost on autopilot.

Something that almost looked like a smile came across Relena's lips, but there was a twist to it that seemed too bitter to be kind. She turned her gaze away from me once more, looking out towards the decadent garden below and going quiet for a long moment. There was a charged feeling in the air that matched the way my heart seemed to be slowly sinking in my chest, even if I couldn't figure out why.

She carried herself so differently from the character in the book.

Relena Peacecraft was the heroine of the novel, and was thus no demure flower, but she had carried certain traits that were common to the trope. Kind to a fault, more merciful than wisdom would dictate, with a delicate sort of grace that could get her blushing at any romantic gesture from the male lead. She was reactionary, never one to start or lead something, instead figuring out ways to resolve issues only after they blew up.

So it was strange to see her now in the flesh, to know - undoubtedly, to the marrow of my bones - that she had planned her own family's discovery of her. It was even stranger to have her admit it so readily to me, a person she should have had no connection to, and yet we apparently had known each other so well that she would use me in her cover story and try to explain herself once we're alone.

When Relena next spoke, she never turned her gaze away from that far-off distance. "...Did it hurt?"

I didn't reply, only because I had no idea what she was referring to - did what hurt? I tried to recall anything from the past few days where I may have incurred some injury, but nothing came to mind; Heero and the others were so passionate about my personal safety that it was definitely verging into paranoia.

Relena was very still, seemingly reading something else into my silence. "I wish you hadn't done it. There were other options, but..." Her words drifted off, the tone turning strange. I couldn't place it; it was almost choked up, but there was an undercurrent of almost resignation in it that had no place. A frown turned her lips before the expression soon smoothed out, replaced by that strange calm. "But I guess you felt it was necessary, too."

She let out a sardonic laugh. "What a pair we are- so ready to throw ourselves into the fire that we won't even consider the alternatives!"

It struck me, then, what exactly Relena's words had been circling around: the greenhouse fire. More startling was the fact that she seemed to know the why behind it - which should have been impossible, because not even the ones who were there that night knew anything. The fact that Relena knew - or seemed to think she knew - had implications that I realized in the next breath.

The fire was planned.

I hadn't wanted to die, I was sure of that much- but I think I hadn't really wanted to live either. The idea of continuing to live - of continuing to endure - as I had been was nigh-unbearable, so painfully wretched that even never waking up again hadn't seemed too miserable in comparison.

What did Relena know of it?

If the fire was indeed planned, whose idea was it to set the greenhouse ablaze: mine or hers?

The partial memories of that night quickly came to mind, the little tidbits I had tried to lock away slowly rising from my subconscious, seeping through the cracks of my scattered thoughts: the crunch of dead leaves underfoot, the immutable chill, the box of misshapen beads made from my own blood, the figure that waited within the dark-

"Duo!"

Fingers wrapped around my wrist and my arm was jerked to the side, just a bit - shocking me out of the turn of my memories. Relena was staring at me, her one hand covered in the jewels of the Sanc Kingdom wrapped around my wrist, and the calm she'd shrouded herself in before was gone in the face of anxious concern.

"What's wrong?" she asked, her eyes searching mine. "What- Was there something about the fire?"

It felt like my head was splitting open, back to front, the balcony warping between the empty grandiosity of the castle and the ruin of the greenhouse. That familiar cotton-like feeling had settled once more over my mind as I desperately tried to keep the doors shut, but every word Relena spoke felt like another battering ram to my thoughts.

"Duo, " Relena gasped out in a quiet sort of horror. "Can you still see them?"

"What?" I managed out weakly, the words echoing oddly in my ears.

I want Heero. The thought hit me like a lightning bolt, tearing through me at the same speed and with the same amount of agony. I could feel myself shivering, could feel the cold creeping down from the nape of my neck to the curve of my spine. I didn't want to hear Relena's next words, but she spoke them anyway.

"The dead," she said, eyes the color of dying hydrangeas. "Duo, can you still see the dead?"

--"Remember," G's voice said through the door, uncaring for my bloodied hands or the icy air in my lungs. "You're supposed to be the one in control, not the ghosts."--

I tore my arm out her grasp, unseeing and stumbling backward. Her skin was suddenly too warm, almost burning, on mine; her words and her eyes too understanding. How could this- this girl, this fictional character in a novel, this mimicry- know me? Every breath she took enraged me and relieved me in equal measure; she belonged to the world of the living and that's where I wanted her to stay, but at the same time, the unease she caused to build upon my shoulders was too much of a burden to stand.

"Don't touch me," I hissed at her.

--"You are of me," ☐h☐☐☐☐☐☐☐ said.--

Relena's hand, reaching out as if she meant to steady me, froze mid-air. Her pretty features twisted, eyes wid as she looked at me and realized who I really am.

--"You are mine," ☐h☐☐☐☐a☐☐ said.--

"I don't understand," she said quietly, bewildered and hurt. "The fire... Did it not work? Or..."

--"You are the only life of mine own allowed," ☐h☐n☐☐a☐☐ said.--

The idea came to her, shock and terror on her face before she closed the short distance between us to take me by the shoulders, grip painful and desperate.

--"You are the only one I will not reap," ☐h☐n☐☐a☐i said.--

"What did you barter?" she demanded of me. "You- what did you give away?!"

I would have given almost anything.

I couldn't stand it anymore - I ran.

Relena's hands fell off of my shoulders like she couldn't bear to hold on anymore, her breath fogging in the space between us before I turned and bolted. I pushed through the heavy curtains that offered us privacy, rushing past the two alarmed guards standing at attention a stone's throw away. Even as I fled down the corridor, I heard Relena's "It's fine - leave him alone!" behind my back.

Relena would protect me; I just didn't know why.

The moment I turned the corner, I collided straight into a warm, steady form. Calloused hands steadied me with a gentler grip than expected, especially once my attention refocused enough to register just who exactly had caught me.

"Trowa," I gasped out.

"You are hyperventilating, Your Grace," the man said, pulling his hands away from me, his face a study of calm. "Breathe with me. Hold your breath, and count to ten..."

It took longer than I wanted for me to remember how to breathe, and by the time I had it back under my control, I was shaking like a leaf in a storm. Trowa's expression hardly changed, even as he took off his own waistcoat to drape over my shoulders. "Heero," was all I could manage out, praying he understood me.

Trowa had extrapolated far more from far less, so he nodded in acquiescence. "I'll bring the Duke over," he said, leading me over to a nearby stone bench to sit on. "Please wait here."

I didn't respond, just pulled his coat closer around me and willed the cold to fade away.

--"Duo, can you still see the dead?"--

Why did the answer come to me, immediate and sickening?

YeS.

---

The last day of the Capital Hunt's festivities and my meeting with Relena was the last straw. The moment Heero had seen my wan complexion and haunted eyes, he'd whisked me away from the castle and back to the Yuy estate, leaving Quatre and the others to manage the goodbyes and make excuses for our hasty departure. Any further gossip was impeded by the Princess herself, who stepped in in lieu of Quatre's careful remarks, masking the sudden flight with an excuse of trouble she personally asked the Yuy ducal couple to resolve.

I'd been parked in Heero's bedroom the moment we'd returned, perched atop the bed with my head buried into my knees. My head was still thrumming with a sense of derealization, to the point where I was finding it difficult to concentrate, even as Heero sat next to me and just allowed me to breathe.

"...Do I need to kill her?"

The laugh tore out of me, the words somehow both unexpected and not. "No," I said with a certainty I actually felt, unfurling to rest my feet back down on the floor. "Let's not go the treasonous route, 'Ro."

My use of his nickname must have signaled to him that it wasn't as bad as I had been in previous incidents, Heero relaxing enough to place his hand over my own in order to provide comfort. He was too kind to ask what he desperately wanted to know, too worried about upsetting me further when he sensed I needed comfort instead. That's why it relied on me to be the cruel one at times, even to myself - so that Heero could still keep that small bit of innocence.

"Relena and I knew each other," I told him quietly. I kept my eyes latched on to the far wall, couldn't bear to look at him for the moment as I spoke. "I don't know how and why, but she... She knew me. Knows me."

Knows me better than my husband, than my attendants; knows me enough to whisper my secrets back to me.

"There were things she said that I- I didn't, don't understand, but... But I think they were true, Heero," I said. I pulled my hand away from him, unable to bear the warmth of his touch at this moment. He let me go - hE's AlwaYs BeEn So aFrAid OF hOldIng mE - but I could feel the weight of his gaze as I stood from the bed and took a few steps away.

The distance helped make the words easier to say: "I think there's something wrong with me."

"There is nothing wrong with you," he said, immediately and with conviction.

I didn't reply. I could hear him as he stood, as he stepped closer; it registered now how easily I could perceive other people. The way I could sense their proximity to me based on nothing, almost as if the very act of breathing and being alive was all I needed to know they were nearby.

I ran my fingers over the choker wrapped around my throat. Stranger, still, that I could finally feel the weight of it on my skin - as if it was almost over.

Heero's arms wrapped around me from behind, the heat of his breath brushing against the shell of my ear. His hold was careful, tender; as always, he only meant to console me. "The court is not full of honest people, Duo," he said, words so familiar because he'd spoken them to Relena in the book, read in a memory that I couldn't guarantee was real. "Don't trust her words so readily. Any one of them would use you as a stepping stone if given the opportunity."

Heero held such a wary, contemptuous opinion on Sanc's Court because he'd only ever seen the ugliest sides of it. To Heero and the others, the nobles of Sanc were nothing more than leeches who were born to favorable bloodlines, greedy for more power and willing to do anything for it. With the constant insults to his mother that he had to endure since he first stepped into the role of heir to Duke Yuy, Heero had not once seen how the noble families contributed anything good to the kingdom.

Perhaps his opinion of the Maxwell family had only improved after he'd been told of their actual role in Sanc. Before then, it was easy to imagine that he'd held them with the same disregard as he did all of the other noble families who decried his lineage. The rocky road of our relationship, the way I would use my connections to distract him - all of that would only contribute to his negative image of the court.

Heero didn't ever seem to realize how easy he would have been to isolate, to blame. How his constant aversion to social events and his absences from the Capital could be so easily used against him by someone with enough ability to plan, with enough motivation and ambition to deceive.

"This is the last official day of the Capital Hunt," Heero continued, pulling back. He turned me around, hand underneath my chin so that he could gently tilt my face up to meet his eyes. He pressed a warm, dry kiss to the space between my brows, his hand running up and down my back soothingly. "We'll leave this place immediately. I'll tell the Crown Prince we need to return home to keep our defenses operational, it's nothing unusual for us to leave the Capital so soon."

"...How soon?" I asked quietly.

Heero placed another kiss, this time to the top of my head. "The day after tomorrow," he promised. "I have an audience with Prince Milliardo tomorrow, and we can pack up the essentials in less than a day. Howard and Tubarov can send us anything left behind that we need."

The idea rang sweetly in my ears. This is what I needed: to get far away from the Capital, from what Relena planned, from all the threats I both knew and didn't. It was running away and hiding, no matter how pretty Heero dressed it, but that wasn't anything new from me.

Once I was away from here, ensconced once more in the provincial Yuy estate and away from these people in the Capital that demanded more from me than I knew myself - then I could be safe.

---

The estate was once more in uproar, the servants rushing to and fro, occasionally stopping to gossip amongst each other while no one was watching. Howard was keeping things moving, having been given specific instructions by Heero to oversee the packing, and didn't allow the house staff to dally as Tubarov did.

Heero had gone to his meeting with the Crown Prince with only Trowa in attendance, as they would be talking about any plans for the militia before departing. Wufei and Meilan were in charge of organizing the soldiers, as some would be returning to the Yuy province while others would remain in the Capital until the next turnover after winter. Quatre was organizing Heero's office, though like his husband, he wouldn't be leaving for a couple more weeks in order to tidy up any other affairs in the Capital.

Hilde had taken over organizing my packing with the help of Coralina, changing out my old wardrobe and accounting for my numerous accessories and jewels. Hilde's mood was the direct consequence of my own obvious frazzled state. When I'd returned last night and Heero had waved away her attempt to attend me, she'd essentially turned from unobtrusive observer to spartan drill sergeant when it came to the other household staff. (Tubarov was giving her a wide berth, avoiding being in her general vicinity by practically sprinting away any time she entered the same room he was in.) She was ordering around the Capital estate maids with a critical eye and whip-like voice, and no one was daring to mess with her when she was in this agitated state.

The Duchess Guard would naturally be accompanying me on my return to the Yuy province, which apparently required Mikhail and Simon to discuss at length the guard rotation for the journey and make any last-minute purchases today. The other guards were their extra set of hands, and if they weren't packing their own belongings, they were helping the other servants to ensure all necessary supplies were ready at hand.

This left me to sit in my cramped study, alone save for Asahi's idle form standing just outside the doors. The room had been cleaned up since our first day here, most of the junk and cleaning supplies removed, the curtains updated and the room relatively dust-free. There remained some of the excess, however; the fanciful knick-knacks, the unopened chest in the corner, and the bookshelves lined with numerous opulent tomes. There were also additional tables and stocking shelves of the Aoba-ku mineral, though I'd already packed most of it away.

With the whirlwind of life in the Capital, I hadn't had as much time as I would have liked to research. Between investigating and reorganizing the estate's accounts, studying Hilde's extensive information on my connections, and dealing with the fallout from my family visit; I had felt far too occupied to really indulge myself in my previous research and experimentation.

This was also the reason I hadn't really had the chance to fully explore the various original items in the Duchess Study. Aside from the fun little gargoyle paperweight (which was now safely packed away because I just had to bring it with me), the myriad of baubles and trinkets were a fun little collection of absolutely useless decor. Although I'd tossed away a few that crossed the line into outright tacky, the majority of the decor seemed reminiscent of the styling of the Maxwell estate.

That is, they were undeniably creepy. I loved them all.

My favorite by far was the pair of batwing bookends, the wings so lifelike that I was half-convinced they were taxidermied. A close second was a deer skull with small amethysts outlining the eye sockets, originally covered by a dusty tarp because the house staff claimed it felt as if the skull "watched" them. I thought it was cute and put it on the tallest shelf on the bookshelf, where it could overlook the entirety of the room and made even the most lethargic of servants pause and work a little faster.

I stopped beside the locked chest, fingers tracing the top of it in thought. It wasn't the most ornate of things, and I'd originally planned to have it moved out of the study with the other boxes of cleaning supplies, but I had decided in the end to keep it in my study. I had intended to open it at some point, though no one - not Tubarov, the maids, Hilde, not even Heero - had the key to it, and given how distracted I'd become, it had become another table to set the random papers and trinkets I was sorting through while in here.

Now that I'd packed everything I needed to, it was once again free of debris. I was supposed to have more time here, but since we were leaving tomorrow, I guess I could open it now just so I could let Howard know what to do with it after we left. If it was more junk, it could be thrown out with the rest; if it was something fun like the decor or useful for the study, Howard could organize it for our return in the future.

It took more time than expected to pick the lock. With antique locks like this, there'd usually be the need for a skeleton key of some sort, but the closest thing I had to that was a few actual critter skeletons. While I may not have access to skeleton keys and raccoon bones weren't the best choice for lockpicking, I did have some hand tools that I used to mess around- invent and experiment. In short, I popped that bitch open with my handy, dandy (medieval) screwdriver.

It was, thankfully, not another dead body.

It was surprisingly sparse given the size. At the bottom were stray sheaves of papers and illustrated maps in immaculate detail, the latter of which appeared to be from the Yuy territory and surrounding provinces. Some of the papers were lumpy, small objects tucked underneath them, though it looked mostly like I had thrown things into the chest haphazardly. Given the lack of organization, there didn't seem to be anything of importance kept locked inside.

Moving some of the papers out of the way, I pulled out an ornate bracelet from under a note-laden document about the last few years of commerce in the Clark duchy. The bracelet was inlaid with gems of the same color as the Yuy household's emblem, and when I touched it, I felt a strange cocktail of emotions flash through me.

Anger, maybe, and something close to pity.

I stared at it some more, willing to risk the memories it may dredge up. The only word that came to mind as I looked into the sapphire and diamond laden accessory was 'heirloom', though one that does not belong to the Duke of Yuy; rather, it was something given to their lover. It was a gift, given to me by Heero - and, by extension, the Yuy ducal family. A mark of ownership, a brand meant to show you had their heart but not their trust.

I tossed it back into the chest without much thought. I sifted through the papers again, scanning them swiftly for anything of interest: the maps tended to hail from the provinces southwest of the Yuy territory, detailed trade routes and traveler paths illustrated and marked on the ones from Armonia, Clark, and Septum. Armonia's map caught my eye, my own handwriting staring back at me from the little notes scrawled across the towns and villages marked. I set these documents aside to pack with the rest of my things.

Under another couple of papers that detailed the comings and goings of several Yuy capital estate servants were some loose, reddish-brown beads of familiar make. They rolled away as I moved the papers, and my fingers hesitated over one for a moment before I finally picked it up. I rolled it experimentally between my fingers, and then crushed it with minimal force. The dust smeared across my fingertips, staining them reddish-brown reminiscent of dried blood.

...Asahi said I used to make beads.

I picked up another one, bringing it up to my face to further examine.

--"I cannot take my gift, my blessing, from you," ☐h☐n☐☐a☐i said.--

A box had rested in the corner table of the greenhouse. It was the size of a small jewelry box, usually closed and locked in the times I wasn't present, moreso to ensure curious eyes wouldn't alight upon it rather than keeping out insects. The bugs never dared to get too close to the numerous beads laid inside, all made from habit more than necessity.

--"For this is what it means to be mine," Shinigami said. "But I can offer you something else."--

An offering and a recrimination, because my family had never taught me how to worship.