Later that night he was sprawled on the white bed weakly. The velvet curtains of their room were open, but all the candles were out. Silver moonlight bathed the stone floor in its glow.
Selene had just finished bathing and was drying her long blonde hair on the couch. She had avoided speaking to Lucen because of his melancholy. But something stayed on her mind.
"Lucen, I heard you were walking around with the halfbreed that arrived recently."
"Hiru," he said simply, "he wanted some water."
"They are unclean, savage creatures," Selene warned. "They carry many diseases and curses on their skin. Stay away from that thing."
Lucen stayed quiet for a moment. His body felt heavy. "I’m something unholy too, aren’t I?"
Selene’s hands froze. She rose and flew over to Lucen, sitting on his side of the bed to run her cold fingers through his hair.
"I’m so sorry, my boy. I shouldn’t have said it like that. But... they are not things meant to be born into this world. The circumstances of your birth were unfortunate, but you can’t compare yourself to such things."
She speaks so well nowadays. Maybe it was just life in the Keep.
"But shouldn’t we help the unfortunate? Isn’t that what you taught me? To protect those who can’t protect themselves?"
Selene’s expression warred as thoughts raged in her head.
"Some things... aren’t worth our grace. The halfbreeds are things that bared their teeth at God. We cannot show them kindness."
There was so much he could say. To try and change her mind, to help her see it from Hiru’s perspective. But it didn’t matter. From the beginning, he and Selene were from different worlds.
He turned away from her and closed his heavy eyes to try and fall asleep. Selene’s hand lingered over his head for a while, then she stood and walked towards the couch.
She ended up sleeping there that night.
The next day, Lucen felt like a bag of sand even though he slept far longer than he should. When he woke up, Selene had already left for work. Lucen’s heart tightened, but he ignored it.
"Are you really going to take a full night to fuse these skills?" he said out loud.
[Blood Rebirth was previously a King-rank spell, so yes, but only if you’d like something good.]
That was insane to hear. He beat someone with a King-rank spell and an Ascension-rank weapon. Peter Cross didn’t follow the right path of a knight, but he was unbelievably powerful with just those two.
[He became a Knight at some point it seems, but he remained at the Low-tier. His thirst for justice and his Madness debuff was the only reason the Spear of Judges didn’t turn him to ash for touching it.]
So Madness could make it easier to wield weapons that required high Dominance?
[If you believed you were Atlas, you could carry the sky. Obsession and Delusion can do similar things, but Madness gives you full belief that all your actions are logical.]
He was late for Warren’s class, but he wasn’t in the mood to really see anyone today. He pulled on a black shirt and beige trousers, and reached around for the white cloak his mum made for him.
After rummaging through the closet for a moment, he remembered. It was still with Hiru. Selene would burst a vein in her forehead if she heard about this.
A few minutes later, he was at Liam’s shop, helping him treat the wine he had been aging. Afterwards they had a late breakfast in the back room.
"Please don’t bring that halfbreed here again, I cleaned the entire fucking shop," Liam complained.
"Don’t worry, I’m going to be minding my own business for a while," he told him.
Liam brushed back his brown hair, sighing. "Aya, man. I can never understand you noble types."
"I’m just a bum, eating with my fellow bum, minding my business and not trying to mess with anything."
Liam’s blue eyes flashed with annoyance. "No one’s saying don’t care. Except the halfbreed."
"What’s the difference between me and him? If I was born in the Horned Reaches, after they executed Selene, I would probably be a slave like him."
Liam shook his head strongly. "You’re a person. That’s an animal. Their brains are still animal brains—the only reason they can speak is their human part. They can’t actually understand human... common sense."
Lucen waved him off, enjoying his warm meal. Then the backroom door was ripped open. Lucen and Liam glared at first, but both jumped to their feet.
Lost Wind’s round, wrinkly face cracked a lopsided smile. "Good, I haven’t had breakfast yet."
She swept in, wearing light purple robes and a white surcoat. She sat down and remained quiet through all their questions till they served her an egg sandwich too.
"Hey, you have to pay for that," Liam told Lucen as he started making himself another sandwich.
"I got a reward from Chester for the whole Cruncher incident. Better make yourself one too, on me. We’re about to hear some bullshit."
Windy ignored his jest. When the sandwich came, she bit into it with zero caution. Some future sight nonsense, he guessed.
"Okay, so we’ve diverted the crisis from coming in three months," she said, sighing satisfyingly.
"So what now?" Lucen asked. He had already asked the Devourer system about its prediction.
[She’ll say the same thing I did. Six months, then you die.]
"Well, our enemy is very skilled with divination, or at least has someone that is," Windy explained. "The next time I can see the future is this coming Empty Sky. So we’ll have to hope our enemy hasn’t moved faster than us."
An Empty Sky. It was a celestial event used to track the end of the month. The next starless night would be in four days. Why did they have to wait so long? But thinking about it, future sight couldn’t be omnipotent, or Lost Wind would have saved the world. If she wasn’t so lazy.
"But I know one way we can interrupt their plans," she said.
There was a beat of silence. Lucen cursed, "Just fucking say it. Ruin all our days already."
"At least you’re still alive. Your day can’t be ruined if you’re dead," she mused. "But yes, our move should be attacking the Red Keep."