Chapter 1158 (2/2)

So when she said Garrett, the air was filled with the faint reverberations of vast spaces, cloudless skies, and rugged mountain ranges. Garrett’s voice caught in his throat.

Vye leaned forward toward him and took the edge off of her voice. “I don’t care how you deal with guilt. But you better fucking never reduce Aldo’s death to the phrase, ‘it was sad that he died’. Or I will kick you out of the Order Ducis myself.”

As he licked his lips, Garrett looked genuinely shocked. “I… I had thought-”

Then he stopped, likely frozen by the look in Vye’s eyes. Shaking her head, Vye turned away and hopped down off the building. She walked back through the streets of Kharon, nodding to the citizens who slowly woke up as dawn arrived. Even if her anger toward Garrett had burned away a lot of her grief, Vye knew it was a short term thing. The grief was pushed away, but it hadn’t left.

So she followed her previous instincts and returned to her tent for a nap. It was difficult, but Vye struggled for several hours to empty her mind. Instead, the small moments of their interactions just flashed against the backdrop of her closed eyelids. Fighting against monsters. Sparring against Ajax.

Aldo’s body being left in the circle of Randidly’s images to test if prolonged exposure was dangerous.

Aldo’s head poking out of the train car luggage compartment above Vye’s seat as she headed back to Erickson Steel to join the Order Ducis.

Eventually, Vye got up; trying to sleep didn’t have any meaning any longer. Because she had reached a half-dreaming state and where she could drift through the rest of the day like a falling leaf on a fall breeze. It was like none of it was real. She would blink and she would be somewhere else, still with buzzing in her ears and with sadness in her heart.

The gathering, Naffur speaking.

Aldo’s body, his hands folded across his chest.

The moment of silence, where Vye looked numbly down at her own feet.

Naffur again, accepting her official as a Knight-Errant of the Order Ducis.

Garrett straightening, shooting Vye a rebellious look as he accepted his own appointment. Vye’s face didn’t even twitch. I’ll deal with you later. Today is for him.

The sound of people leaving, Valor’s hand on her shoulder. He squeezed, then pulled his hand back and walked away from her.

When Vye came slowly back to herself, night was falling and she was standing in front of Aldo’s tombstone.

Aldo Ghosthound

“When we pick the way we live our lives, we can’t complain about the deaths we find waiting for us at the end.”

Vye wiped a tear from her face even as she felt something change inside of her. Almost unwillingly, she opened up her hand and produced her Fate. Just as she had suspected, there was a new landmark on her Fate, marked on a small hill in the shadow of a medium-sized mountain range. The Grave of Aldo Ghosthound. And it gave her an additional +1 Willpower per Level.

“I want to hate that quote, and that we put it on his gravestone, but he’d be grinning like a fool to see it.” Naffur walked slowly up next to Vye. Then he shook his head. “We found out his name, but… it didn’t fit him. It didn’t fit how he lived. Ghosthound does. So… this is what we are left with.”

Shaking her head, Vye could only manage to say. “That quote… it’s perfect. Even at the end, he didn’t flinch. He didn’t even look scared. He just-”

Vye brought her hand to her mouth. It was the only way that she could keep from sobbing.

“...which is why what I’m about to say is so hard.” Naffur shook his head. “You shouldn’t have to deal with all of this at once. But you are in the Order Ducis now. And the only one of the new applicants promoted directly to Knight-Errant. So now you need to help us.”

“...did something else happen?” Vye whispered. Suddenly she was weirdly thankful for the fact that her hand still ached from her attempted Reject earlier. Now that pain helped ground her. Because Naffur’s tone made it clear that something couldn’t wait.

“No, not exactly. But Madelyn has some rather specific Skills for detecting this sort of thing, and… it seems clear that Aldo shouldn’t have slipped. Someone forced him to slip. Likely someone present. Someone who wanted to either seize another spot in the Order Ducis for an ally or who wanted someone so staunchly in support of Randidly Ghosthound out of the way. There didn’t seem to be any point in announcing that I was onto the foul play, so things should settle down, but… be careful, Vye. Someone has a knife to our throats.”