Sanguine Prince | Chapter 26: Diverging Paths (Second Draft)

“Whoa...” Arcturus said as he looked over the information panel, reading the details carefully, and momentarily forgot his discomfort. “That’s awesome.”

“Apprentice?” Tylariel prompted in a tense voice.

“Sorry,” Arcturus said as he dismissed the notification. “I just gained a new ability, I guess. Adam and I now have a tether that I can use to find him. It also has the potential to grow and give us new benefits as it evolves. It’s surreal, but if I focus, I can feel him right there. I could be blindfolded and point to exactly where he is, and know instantly whether he’s alive or dead.”

Tylariel pursed her lips as she looked between the two of them, until her posture relaxed marginally and her vine-blade vanished into motes of Aether before she clipped her intricate hilt back to her belt. “I suppose what’s done is done, then,” she said decisively, as if that were the end of it. “Luckily, you roused yourself, though the conduct of your Daeva companions was unacceptable.”

“You’re the one who pulled out the Aetherblade, lady!” Danica said angrily while shaking her staff at Tylariel.

“That will be quite enough of that, I think,” Maurice said placidly as he sipped his tea. “I believe the Daeva were in the middle of something before emotions started running rampant?”

Tylariel looked at the calm clothier for a moment before abruptly settling herself back onto the chaise she’d claimed and gesturing towards Arcturus with a manicured hand. “Proceed with your Oaths, Apprentice,” she said as if the entire confrontation had never happened. “We have more stops to make today, and we’ve no time to dither unnecessarily.”

Arcturus blinked in surprise at the jarring shift of atmosphere and looked curiously at Maurice.

From all that he could discern, his grand-uncle was little more than a regular shopkeeper—yet a single statement had been enough to dissuade his normally-wilful and acerbic Mentor from even responding to Danica’s provocation. Until that moment, he had seen only deference towards Tylariel from the Tailor, yet something about that interaction tickled him.

There was far more to Maurice, he suspected, than what was visible to the naked eye.

“I don’t know if it’s going to be the same process with you guys,” Arcturus said as he shuffled the thought away and turned to Danica and Andy. “So let’s go one at a time, if you guys are still interested.”

“Yeah…” Andy said as he slowly sat back down, his weapons somehow gone as fast as they had appeared. “Not going to lie, definitely rethinking the whole ‘horrible agony’ part of the de—OW!”

Andy shot Danica an annoyed look as she smacked the back of his head.

She, in turn, planted her staff firmly with her right hand while she poked his temple with her left. “We made a promise, Andy. Don’t even think of chickening out!”

“A promise?” Arcturus asked with immediate curiosity.

“When we learned you were supposedly forever dead,” Adam said as he readjusted in his seat and clenched his hands over and over, an action Arcturus assumed was to handle the leftover adrenaline from the Oath-Binding. “We swore that if we ever found a way to get you back, no matter how far-fetched or insane it was, we’d take it. You died trying to keep us safe. Even though you technically failed, you paid for it with your life, dude.”

Adam shook his head, sighed, and then continued—settling his gaze intently on Arcturus’ own.

“Even on Earth, you don’t just forget that sort of debt. We’ve been grinding hard trying to get strong enough to try something—anything, really—for a chance to get you back. Finding you like this? I can’t even tell you how surreal it is, but—”

“We’re not letting you get away from us again,” Danica finished fiercely. “No way in Hell. We’ve had to deal with not having you around for nearly two years. It was awful, Arcturus. Especially after we learned about the Houses, and I started connecting the dots. We didn’t tell anyone about it, of course. That would’ve put a target on our backs.”

“Dots that Andy, Caeara, and I were admittedly skeptical of,” Adam confessed with an apologetic shrug. “It just seemed way too convenient.”

“It was… challenging to believe that my Daeva companions had grown up with a trueborn scion of House Valoura,” Caeara admitted nervously. “Very challenging. To a Terran, your family is…”

“It’s like being told someone grew up with the Windsors,” Andy supplied when Caeara trailed off at a loss. “Seems like complete bullshit unless you have solid proof. Especially when the Windsors in this scenario use magical fucking lightsabers.”

Tylariel grumbled in annoyance at Andy’s lack of decorum, but his only acknowledgement was a very provocative wink in her direction.

“We ended up researching the Valouran bloodline and recognized the patterns,” Adam said matter-of-factly, distracting Tylariel from glaring at Andy. “The naming conventions, the sketches, even the records of each personality. When we realized that Senior matched the description of the presumed-dead Crown-Prince…”

“Why didn’t you try to come forward, then?” Sumeko piped up curiously. “Daeva are divine-touched. The Church would not let you be harmed for mere conjecture.”

“They were wise not to,” Tylariel interjected with grudging respect in her tone, as if the words were being dragged out of her. “Leon Fortunis has the Church eating from his palm. No one would ever think to break Valaria’s laws with Arcturus Titus alive, but with the Iron Prince gone—”

“I’m sorry, ‘Iron Prince’?” Arcturus interjected incredulously. “You never told me that!”

“He had a reputably rigid code,” Tylariel said as if that explained it all.

“Additionally, almost the entire Gilded Aegis was lost when he was,” Maurice said sadly. “A true loss for the Dominion, that was. Heroes all. A true loss indeed.”

“The Gilded Aegis?” Arcturus repeated and stared at Maurice. “Hold on, they were real? I thought those were just stories he made up!”

“Understandable, given your previous frame of reference,” Maurice said benignly. “No doubt the tales would have seemed fantastical and implausible to a youth from such an Aether-starved source-shard.”

“They were your dad’s bodyguards, or companions, or whatever,” Andy said with a nonchalant wave of his hand. “Sort of like Achilles and the Myrmidons. Real badasses, and all with the same kind of crazy devotion to the traditions and laws of your family.”

“The Aegis was often a sore spot for the Imperial Crown-Prince,” Maurice added with a hint of amusement. “He never liked that people in Valaria saw them as superior to the Praetorian Guard.”

“Egotistical bourgeoisie. ‘How surprising!’ said nobody ever,” Danica commented sardonically.

“So, wait—you guys mentioned researching, but… what about Amélie? Or Alanna, for that matter?”

His friends exchanged glances, and Arcturus’ heart clenched for reasons he couldn’t quite articulate. They would have told him if Amélie had died, so it had to be something else.

It had to be.

Who are you trying to convince?

“They both made it to Terra, but…” Andy trailed off and glanced at Danica for help, who promptly shook her head and jutted her chin at Adam.

Well, I suppose we can score one for puppy love and dumb luck. Touché.

Adam turned back to Arcturus after giving the others a flat look.

“I’ll admit I was trying to avoid this discussion a little longer,” he said grimly, clasped his hands together, and leaned forward to look Arcturus in the eyes. “Amélie took your death a lot harder than the rest of us, Arc, and it… changed her. When we came to Terra, we were all given a kind of ‘tutorial’ at the Shrine of Order where we emerged. Every Daeva receives the same, though I guess you’d be the exception. We were all given ‘paths’ and ‘classes’ to choose from, based on our personalities and aptitudes.”

“I got the Path of Secrets, and Classes ‘Rogue’ and ‘Arcanist’,” Andy put in with a hint of smugness. “When I hit level ten, I got the option to advance my Rogue class to Assassin, or to wait and level my Arcanist to five and then take the Mageslayer Class. As you can probably guess—”

“He was too edgy to refuse it,” Danica finished derisively.

“Rude,” Andy groused.

“Danica was given the Cleric and Arcanist classes, and Path of Serenity,” Adam continued as if Andy had never cut in, “and she eventually also chose a combination class: Warcleric. It’s an off-healer and DPS role.”

“And it’s awesome,” Andy said with a grin.

“It’s definitely useful,” Adam agreed as Danica stared lovingly at her halo-topped staff.

“What about you, Adam?” Arcturus asked with an amused glance for Danica.

“Path of Knowledge. Got Arcanist and Warrior, chose Battlemage,” Adam said without preamble. “Mix of magical and martial skills, primarily focusing on the former. Spellblade is the other option I had, but that inverts the focus from magical to martial, and I’ve always liked the idea of going full Doctor Strange on someone—so I went with Battlemage.”

“And Caeara?”

“That’s another thing,” Andy said with a frown. “Terrans don’t get Classes. Like, at all.”

“What?” Arcturus asked, turning instinctively to look at his Mentor, who was watching them all with rapt attention. “But Tylariel—”

“Archon is as much a rank or position as it is a ‘Class’,” Adam interjected with a wave of the hand. “It’s among the closest things we can see to a tangible Class, but it’s still not really classified as one. Something goes… weird… when you try to apply System logic to Terrans. It’s like it doesn’t know how to quantify them, or can’t quantify them. It becomes more disconcerting when you think about everything else alongside that. You’d assume it’d be as accessible to them as it is to us, since you need Terran blood somewhere in your lineage to qualify for reincarnation as a Daeva… but nope.”

“How does that make any sense?” Arcturus questioned. “I get Charisma, Perception, and Intelligence Checks all the time. It’s kind of annoying, actually. I ended up muting them.”

“Same,” Andy said with a grunt. “I don’t need that shit ruining my immersion.”

“...this isn’t a game, Andy,” Danica said reproachfully.

“Yeah? Tell that to my experience bar,” Andy snorted.

Arcturus shook his head at the pair and motioned for Adam to continue.

The other man smiled wryly at Arcturus and then did as he was bade.

“I think it’s less of a value-based system and more of a guiding point,” Adam proceeded to clarify thoughtfully, while slipping into scholar mode. “Your stats don’t actually control anything in the strictly operative sense; they just inform your growth and how people perceive you, I believe. It’s just like working out back on Earth and building muscle.”

He waved a hand idly.

“Sure, Arcana dictates your mana regeneration, and Vitality impacts your healing factor, but they aren’t actually influencing you—they’re showing a numerological quantification of your total self. The main difference, I’ve surmised, is that on Terra we can use ‘Experience’ to nudge our development in the direction we want it to go, and in a more manageable timeframe. With Aether, it also means we can achieve feats of strength, or acquire longevity, that would normally be impossible.”

“What about Charisma, Perception, all those things? The Checks?”

“That’s just a narration of your natural aptitudes, Arcturus. Think of the attributes like quantification of your development. All you’re doing when you invest points is stimulating that growth at a hyper-accelerated rate, like taking steroids to build muscle faster.”

“Except stats don’t give you a micro-pen—STOP THAT!”

Danica, having just smacked Andy with her staff, glared at him.

Arcturus found himself grinning at the exchange.

“Are you all quite done with your nonsensical gibberish?” Tylariel asked with mild irritation. “As much as I enjoy being the subject of Daeva supposition and pseudo-Aetherscientific postulation, we have objectives to achieve. Answer his question about your other companions, swear your Oaths if you intend to, and let us leave poor Maurice to reopen his store. My Apprentice is still in need of an Aetherblade.”

Danica rolled her eyes with slow and deliberate emphasis, and Arcturus struggled not to wince as Sumeko and Jess glared daggers at her.

“The Lady Archon is correct, I suppose. We should cut to the case,” Adam conceded with a quiet sigh. “I’m sorry, Arcturus. I keep finding excuses to veer away from the topic. To make a long-winded story succinct, we all had our inductions and Amélie… well, Amélie acquired the Path of Justice, and the Classes ‘Warrior’ and ‘Cleric’.”

“So?” Arcturus prompted, eager to know more, eager to know anything.

“She chose to take an Advanced Hybrid instead of a Base Advanced Class.”

Arcturus’ eyes narrowed at Adam’s hesitant, almost evasively reluctant tone.

“What aren’t you telling me, Adam?” he asked directly.

The Battlemage closed his eyes for a moment, as if looking for strength, and then opened them to settle his focus on Arcturus with grim resignation.

“Amélie really didn’t handle your death well, as I said, man. It made her depressed, angry, and volatile—she started looking for something to fill the void. For a… purpose, I suppose. We tried to help, but she wouldn’t have any of it. She and Alanna grew close. Really close. When Alanna got her Oracle class, she had a vision about something she wouldn’t tell us, and she and Amélie just… shut us out.”

Arcturus’ heart started thundering in his chest as he listened. 

“A few weeks later,” Adam continued steadily, “Amélie went to the Inner City Cathedral and—well, we don’t know what happened exactly, but she went in and the next thing we know, we’re being told to leave the Cathedral grounds immediately.”

“What?” Arcturus asked after the abrupt ending. “Did something happen?”

“Something happened, alright,” Andy said in an uncharacteristically bitter tone.

Adam’s voice was tight with suppressed emotion when he continued.

“She joined the Inquisition, Arcturus. Amélie became a Valkyrie, and if what we heard yesterday is true, she’s been assigned as a bodyguard.”

“So what?” Arcturus asked in confusion. “Who cares if she’s guarding some rand—”

“Leon Valoris Honorum,” Adam cut in with a grimace. “She’s given her loyalty to the guy about to inherit your throne, Arc.”

“Adam, what? What are you—”

“She’s not the same girl you remember, Arcturus,” his best friend said flatly. “You need to be ready for that. You need to accept it.”

Adam fixed him with a determined stare and emphasized his words.

“Amélie is our enemy, Arcturus.”