Chapter 1003: Open Thoughts
There's that expression on him again. That silence. That demeanor. It was just like being back in Amanda's apartment, glancing back ever so often at him from the side and seeing him almost… not guilty… not remorseful… but just in a way that I haven't seen him before.
"Uliitia," Dad turned back to Ruria, and for a moment, I saw something click behind his gaze. "So it was you. You were the Homiren of this village, weren't you?"
Ruria didn't react much, but I certainly did.
"Homiren?" I asked, drawing a complete blank.
"So what if I was?" Ruria finally broke her silence—harshly. "Does that have anything to do with what you came here for?"
"You are Ruria Salnor."
The red in her eyes glinted dangerously.
"Don't say my name."
"The demon child taken and fostered by the recusant Magus, Castus Salnor."
"Don't say his name!"
"I heard about you. Your father too. He was—"
"Dad!" Now I was shouting, scowling. Dad went mute, and slowly turned my way. "I gave you this one chance, and you're wasting it."
I couldn't hear anything anymore; not the music nor the twirl and step of the countless dancers that followed in its melody. For me, for Ruria… and probably for Dad too, it was just us… and the silence between us.
"I didn't mean to anger both of you," Dad bowed his head. "I only wanted to—"
"Ask your question," I said again as heavily as I could.
And after so many detours, distractions, and digressions, Dad finally seemed ready to comply.
"Tell me," he said to her, meeting her fuming, contemptuous glare once more. "Kronocia. What do you think of all I've done?"
"All you've done?"
Ruria sounded so confused, much more so than I could ever recall.
"What the hell do you mean by 'all you've done?'"
She, usually so adept at keeping her emotions in check, sounded far from the calm, level-headed individual I had grown accustomed to hearing all this time.
"You bugged me all this time to answer your stupid question, and then when I finally give you the opportunity, you can't even ask it properly? Do you think I'm omniscient, or are you just that in love with being so unbearably cryptic?"
It's like she couldn't be bothered to be calm, or even try and put on an act of appearing as such. Every other occasion, sure. But for Dad… it seems she didn't consider him worth even the tiniest sliver of pretense. Her scorn, her exasperation, all laid bare and lining every inch of her expression.
"I didn't mean to be cryptic," Dad said. "I'm sorry I've upset you…"
"Stop—" Ruria breathed out loudly. "—apologizing. I don't need it. I don't want to hear a single word more from you than I already have to bear. Just ask me the question again. This time, make it make sense."
Dad seemed to be taking her anger and her request to heart—the way he dropped his head, sank his gaze low and deep in apparent thought. And while he was still in the middle of figuring out his approach, Ruria and I caught each other's eyes.
She didn't hold her gaze for very long; perhaps she didn't want to turn that bubbling, boiling anger she had for him at me. But that's the thing. When she looked at me, I didn't feel that anger. I saw it, yes—pursed lips, scowling brows and all—it was pretty evident she was plenty enraged, only… it felt like there was just something about it. Something exaggerated.
"Ruria," Dad said.
"Irene," she corrected him. Fiercely. "You call me Irene."
He immediately complied. "Irene, could you quiet down the noise? I can't think properly, and I don't want to make another mistake that could potentially upset you more."
By the look of her, accommodating frivolous requests—especially once from Dad—seemed to be the last thing she was in the mood for. Her eyes flickered, her lips squirmed and narrowed, but a second later, suddenly, all was a startling silence.
The world shifted. The ethereal purple twilight, gone. Suddenly, it was blazing; the sky an infinite deep blue. A midday sun beamed the surfaces of the village buildings, refracting back an almost blinding white light. Then, just as requested, there was also the quiet that Dad asked for.
A barren kind of quiet.
All semblance of the festivities from before had been stripped clean. No banners, no music, and no people. Every building was vacant, every street a desolate path leading only to further emptiness… but there were signs present; the dying flame of a blacksmith's kiln, the rotting harvest of an abandoned fruit stall shriveling in the sun, personal belongings spilling out of upturned trunks scattered across the cobble roads. The little clues that showed that everyone didn't just abruptly vanish from their village.
They all just left.
If I had to guess, Ruria had moved us into another memory of hers—one a little further into the future. An empty, quiet memory. And judging by the look on Dad's face, this wasn't the type of quiet he had in mind.
Nevertheless, he took what he was given, and began to speak, "I want to know what you think of me. The things I've done. The things I didn't do. What you believe I should've done. The things you disagree with. Your thoughts. I want to hear what you—"
"You cannot be serious," Irene buried her face into her palms, and peering between the gaps in her fingers, turned immediately to the skies. When her hands finally dropped, she looked almost like a madwoman. "You want to ask about all this now? It's only now that you want a second opinion? Not back then? Not when it mattered? You're asking now when the answer doesn't really matter anymore?"
"It matters to me," Dad said.
"Why do you care? Why does it matter? It's all too late! Kronocia's gone! What about that is going to change just because you're feeling remorseful—guilty?"
"I'm guilty, yes. But I'm not remorseful. Kronocia's gone, and I don't regret letting it get destroyed. This is not about regrets."
"Then you shouldn't be asking in the first place. You have no reason to be asking me any of that. If you don't even care about what you've done—"
"I said I don't regret it. I never said I didn't care."
"Big difference," Ruria sneered. "What do you really want? What are you trying to gain? To justify? You don't need these questions answered to continue living your life, do you? Why insist so much for absolutely nothing?"
"It's not nothing. It's your thoughts, your opinions, your words," Dad's gaze dropped again, briefly, and slowly and carefully, he spoke. "My wife holds nothing against me. She loves me no matter what. She thinks the world of me… as I do of her."
I was listening intently, and maybe I was hanging onto every word a bit too much because I felt myself jerk a little hearing his voice boom again.
"And my son. He knows what I've done, why I did it. I know he hates it, I know he can never accept it. But he doesn't hate me. He's completely separated me from my past, whether he's aware of it or not. My daughter thinks the same as him. They will never absolve me, but in the same vein, they will never condemn me."
"Then you have me," Ruria said, her voice sharp and visceral in the ringing silence. "No bias. No relation. A total stranger. Is that what you're looking for? Someone to scold you?"
"You are one of the last remaining voices that is left of Kronocia," he said. "I spent a lifetime in servitude for its greater good, only to turn my back against it at the very last moment. I failed my role. Someone should be upset. Someone should hold me responsible. But there's no one left."
"So you do just want to be scolded."
"The people of Kronocia have every right to hate me, to resent me. They deserve that chance to."
"Kronocia's gone."
"But you aren't, you're still here," Dad met her gaze again; that ugly, twisted look she bore in her eyes. "And you hate me, don't you? You resent me."
"What's the point?"
"There is no point," he told her. "You're right, it won't change a thing if you choose to answer my question or not. It might be meaningless, stupid… and at the end of the day, I'm only doing this for myself."
"Again, why?" Ruria inquired, and I could hear her voice rippling across the sky; each word reverberating louder than the last. "Why are you insisting so much for absolutely nothing?"
"Because… I think it is the only right thing to do."
It was whiplash like nothing else. I could see it in her face, the utter bafflement. It told the whole story. The levels of hypocrisy, audacity… to suddenly be talking of what's right after all that he's done?
Hot air started to blow, a strong and arid breeze dragging away every stray litter and junk across the town. From a noticeboard, a flier sprung free in a sudden, stronger gust—it flitted through the air for some time, swaying and twisting, before sliding itself limply before my shoes.
I only had a moment to read, before the wind picked it back up and soared it away from sight. What it said, every inch and splatter of ink on it conveyed it perfectly—in its messy scrawling, in its harsh brevity.
<<FRIEDEN RIKE HAS FALLEN. SHE IS HERE.>>
"The right thing," Ruria was quiet when she spoke. "Is that what you think?"
"Maybe you disagree," Dad said. "But if you refuse to speak now, if you really don't want to… then Kronocia will never get the chance to condemn their Hero."
Something happened. A subtle gesture. Ruria clenched her fists, tightened her scowl, and I noticed it again. That strangeness to her rage. She looked at him, but it was as if she was seething at something other than him.
"And if that means anything to you, then tell me," Dad implored her. "What do you think of Leonardo the Hero?"