(Resumed) Solstice

[Grace]

We had decided to move to a room on the First Floor, about two doors from where I'd set Emmett, making sure to carry that violet vambrace from earlier. It was valuable from the Enchantment alone, whatever it was, but that Scion Jackass wielded it in battle meant that while it was formidable, it was unlikely to kill me out of hand. Not that I would make use of it until I divined the Enchantment's purpose; I wasn't stupid.

Once in the room, I disrobed. My sapphire-blue Robe of Water slumped into the dusty sea of carpet below, leaving behind a thin white dress shirt blooming from onyx-black dress slacks underneath. NEVER a dress or skirt: The union of freedom of movement, availability of breath, and minimal seizure opportunity extricated life and nether from fates far worse than merely dying.

This time I held no such fear of despoiling ravishment. I beheld the Soul before me. Were there a single trace of maligned lust, I'd have smelt it.

I shook my head and unbuttoned my shirt. The lust was sure and present, but it is tempered, and, more importantly, bridled. I cast off the fabric to permit a black, shoulder-strapped brassiere's display. "Will you not do the same?" I asked with complete knowledge that Patrick still bore his full attire.

His voice resounded with an eerie confidence. "Nah. Jacqueline taught me not to. We've been sacked mid-night more than once."

I unclasped the belt suspending my pants now slithering down my legs. A bare black undergarment alone dammed the tide of exposure.

"Same reason you chose men's wear and a binder, right?"

I spun to him and raised my hands, Magick riming into claws about my nails.

He fell onto the bed, guffawing.

"What's so funny?! And how'd you know I was flattening my breasts?!" My lead arm twitched, and for what I could only surmise the first time, I felt a difference. Not an external one: My Mind and Spirit stood in opposition, each vying to dominate the other.

Said Mind, Patrick had stalked me, engineering this moment like all the other lechers, and I'd grown weak to trust a man trained in disarming seduction. That I might as well go back and marry the Chancellor so he can consummate what he did back then.

Said Spirit, Patrick did naught save act in my interest, even in his vendetta against Emmett. Even at Iron By- The hands upon my-

No, he wasn't there. "Why didn't you follow him to the Dying Canary when he carried me out? Fucker put his hand on my arse-"

Patrick's chortles ceased in an eyeblink. "When he rolled you off his shoulder, right?"

"Does it fucking matter-"

"It does." Patrick's betrayal frosted over what remained of my inner child's heart. "Grace, you probably don't know this since you grew up a woman in a rather affluent area, but when you're rescuing someone unconscious, you pivot the roll with the buttock and use the upper back as a brace. I stayed behind to support the evacuation because you had a dozen eyes on you, and Emmett did everything correctly. With how I was back then, I'd have just gotten in the way."

Lies, utter lies. I thought back to my harrowed past. "Only the first half. The second half, my adolescence? I'd been exiled, left to fend on the streets. I knew even back then the threat men pose, so I practiced every Martial Arte and Mental Discipline I could find. Stealth Artes, Contact Combat, Berserking, Way of Four Shrikes, Shadowdancing, Circleweaving, Endeavoured Time, both animal and holistic variants, Soulbind, Way of Harmonic Breath, Gentle Path, Soft Artes-

I stopped myself. He was correct in totality: many grappling and throwing techniques touched the buttock with no sexual intent at all, and what was a lift, if not a soft throw?

Patrick stepped towards me. "So that's where you get all that killing intent from."

I squeezed more tension into my arms, the Ice freezing onto my wrists.

"When a young girl goes out of her way to learn, train, and main the two deadliest Martial Artes in Sollun, it's for a reason. And the third one you mentioned is fucking Berserking so don't even try."

My stance wavered.

Don't.
Let go. It's okay. You're safe.
It's a trap. It's always a-

Patrick steadied his distance and opened his arms. "Who hurt you?" The question was calm and inviting, letting me go to him rather than imposing himself on me.

My eyes parried the gesture, swerving to the mattress. "I'm going to want to lie down for this." My legs glided over the carpet, ferrying me to the soft landing. After several measures of rest Patrick's weight counterbalanced mine on the bed, and the tears flew. "Those- That bastard. Lord Adams! He- He killed my Sister. Before my nine-year-old eyes!!" The shudders and deluge of miserable regret resurfaced. "And he- he told me, to my face, that I should have died for daring to show anger! At nine! Then he- he took- and- Chancellor- He-" The words ceased to flow. The screams did not.

Patrick shifted onto his side, eyes facing me. He kept an even breath and steady pulse, observing my hysterics, perhaps mourning vicariously through my sorrows. It was when my tantrum waned that he spake at last. "What was her name?"

Her. My Sister. My loving, doting, dead Sister. I had to speak; I needed to. I would honour her memory with every gram of my Soul. I thawed my Magicked claws. "Ce- Celeste..."

"No..." Patrick's Soul screamed a vengeful howl, not that he could have known what it was. "Did... Did she pursue an Apprenticeship to the East?"

"Sort of." My emotions had begun collecting themselves, even if the heartache lay raw as the day it was born. "She wanted to find a Mistress in Capi Talis, but getting there was perilous whether you go north through Nerdew Whale or east through Kerdin Khal." I gave my heart a few moments to still before continuing. "So when Father abandoned Mother, Celeste followed him eastward to get past the wolves. Along the way, she found what she was looking for in-"

"Charade Gin." Loss permeated the air. "Emmy's folks took her in the day she arrived and apprenticed her the next morning. She was this amazing big sister who always listened and made us feel like we mattered."

An alchemical draught of pride and sorrow coursed my veins and arteries. "That's her!" My tone betrayed impossible quantities of girlishness. "She was kindness incarnate, never missed a chance to grin. She was a Fire Magus in all the right ways, even if her Element only came a minute before Death."

"So Lord Adams killed her..."

I reached my hand out and planted it on his chest. It was surprisingly firm, even when softened by robe and clothes.

"And after that... he lashed out at her grieving innocent child sister..."

My eyes welled again.

"He then gave you to Chancellor Breckenbale to do whatever he wanted, and he did."

A staccato whine later, my arms enveloped him. What was even happening to me?

"So you learned every many different ways to escape, kill, and painfully disable you found so it would never happen again."

I buried my face into his shoulder and wept in silence.

"You really are terrifying, you know." His words condemned, but his voice redeemed. "Take your time. If I had to guess, this is probably the first time you got to feel anything, huh?"

True to his word, he just let me cling to him for Heavens know how long. He had likely been staring up at the ceiling. He didn't return the gesture; he was just content letting me latch like a parasite.

The number of tears and other olfactory fluids I must have stained his robe with was utterly shameful, yet he judged not once.

At the end of the bout, my cries did subside. I floated on the precipice betwixt Matra and Astra. One lapse in thought, and I would be asleep with trivial ease.

"Hey, Grace."

I hummed.

"When we're done with School and Etsies and Missions."

"Mhm?"

"Let's depose some bastards."

I coiled away. What was this man saying?!

"I know you want nothing more than to see Adams and Breckenbale receive their comeuppance."

I could not respond. Wasn't this supposed to be the part where he gives some passionate spiel about love and friendship and I cry my heart out and kiss him, living happily ever after?!

"You think I'd lead you down a road of forgiving the unforgivable?" Patrick flashed a dire smile. "Who do you think I am? Emmett?"

My lungs thumped rhythmically in my bosom.

"No. Even if you wanted, I'm not kind enough to abide what they've done." He lifted himself to a seated posture. "I don't want to go down this road alone, and you don't want a man fighting your fights for you. So let's do this together, just us."

My mouth ran off on its own again. "Patrick, I refuse! You can't just go meddling in affairs that aren't yours and expect everything to come out okay! You have not a single clue of the forces at play here! I-"

"You're right." His eyes stared straight into mine. "But here's what I do know: if we don't take this into our own hands and show we have a plan, there's an idiot two doors down who'll act with no plan the instant he learns any of this. And don't you say I'm wrong. You were there when he dissed Neil the first time." His gaze swept toward the room door. "We're in a perfect position to burn the evil from cover of shadow, and we'll have each other to keep the loneliness away."

I shook my head, scribing a mental note to petition that Patrick be Squad Leader. That he was correct on all counts incensed me, but it didn't change that I'd have hated him if he'd tried to save me from my past. But that was not his proposal. "Alright," I finally said, "I'll let you accompany me for this. But we work on my lead. Got it?"

"Well duh." Another victorious beam from his lips. "This Adams and Breckenbale shite is your past, not mine. You need to call the shots, but you're not alone. We need reminders of why we're spelunking into the bowels of humanity, and that's why we have each other. Alright?"

With the fury of a lumber-slaying avian, I nodded.

He threw himself back onto the bed, the most relaxed I had ever seen him. "You wanna recount happy memories? Celeste was a sister figure to us and your actual sister. We can trade tales."

I shook my head in exhaustion but Patrick had already begun. He described how one cold night in Charade, my Elder Sister exfiltrated the two of them out of bed and carried them to a rooftop. She had used her Shroud to ensconce the two in warmth and weaved an azure tapestry in the sky, painting tales about myths and philosophies on Magick and Æther, as well as maths, sciences, and personal anecdotes from their own experiences.

I chimed in, telling how Celeste had often regaled me with two myths in particular: Sapphos Of The Shroud, and Her lesser-known Brother, Rubicon Who Defies Horizons. She'd called these two specific figures the Founding Deities of Ætheric Praxis, for their myths and lores founded the collective basis of Magickal theory.

Somewhere in the middle of that, I drifted asleep. It was a most pristine experience I would surely treasure.

LunaSoltaer

I was on the fence for a good while, figuring out whether I should even show this much. I had this foreshadowed as far back as Chapter 26, with Grace's extreme aggression being another hint. But surely I could omit all this and have her still make sense?

Then I remembered: No, I really couldn't. Not without deleting that line in Ch26, and then Grace would just be more of a generic frosty ice queen who hates men. Which okay, Grace may have started out like that, but Grace has grown from that point and, for me at least, she represents the internal strength needed to, from within the depths of a hell forced on you by the outside world, take in the darkness, keep what makes you stronger, and heal from the rest. Battle scars, as they say. I feel that to set this up for her and then take it away is tantamount to running away from the parts of myself I'm afraid of and would rather not deal with.

Thank you as always for reading Solstice.