Chương 65: Chapter 64 - The Heart's Deceitful Act

Author's note: Hey! I will be resuming from 3rd perspective focusing on Lucid now while tracing the events further back and I will release one chapter a day from now on. Thank you for reading!

The cold stone of the alcove pressed against Lucid's back, a stark contrast to the fading adrenaline heat in his veins. From this shadowed crevice, he watched the royal guards, Vexian soldiers, their capes too blue, their armor too polished for this backwater horror, secure the chamber. The cultists, bound in his own shimmering chains of light, offered no resistance, their fervor extinguished with the purple flame. He had done it. The plan, conceived in three sleepless days of paranoid observation, had held.

Mostly. A low, pained grunt escaped him as he adjusted his stance, the ache in his fist a persistent reminder of the act's uglier necessities.

'Hitting her… that was the worst part.' The memory of Ayame's stunned, betrayed expression before the darkness took her was a shard of ice in his gut. Necessary, but foul. He pushed the thought aside; sentiment was a luxury for safer places. A soft, fragmented whisper brushed against his consciousness.

"…and from the deep, the First Chain did bind the formless chaos, with mercy and with might…" He couldn't help the wry twist of his lips.

'There she goes again.'

"Getting poetic on me, Alice?" he muttered under his breath, his voice a dry rasp.

"Save the hymns for when we're not hiding from the king's men in a bone-filled ruin."

"It is a prayer of binding and order. It felt… appropriate," her voice replied, clearer now, tinged with a note of offense.

"You would not understand its significance. Your mind is full of cunning and cracks, not liturgy."

"Cunning and cracks keep us alive, sweetheart. Liturgy gets you a robe and a spot by the creepy fire." He peeked out again. The coast was still clear for their escape route, a fissure in the cathedral's rear wall, half-hidden by a collapsed statue.

"Besides, your 'appropriate' prayer sounds like you're trying to lull someone to sleep."

"You are irreverent."

"And you're a voice in my head reciting half-remembered sermons. We all have our quirks." He allowed himself a short, quiet breath, the first that didn't taste of ash and adrenaline. The plan had been a house of cards built on a cliff's edge. It had started in that village. Nothing had been right. The silence was too thick, the smiles too practiced. The boy, had been the only real thing in the whole damn place.

"The whole town was a stage, Alice," he whispered, his eyes still scanning the room.

"Three days. Didn't sleep a wink. Counted the cloaks, watched the patterns. No one ever arrived, no one ever left. Just… circulated." He'd known he had to play his part. Leaving Ayame and the boy in the square, he'd slipped into that odd shop with the sign of a crossed ring.

"No receptionist. Just the smell of old incense and that… thing. A deer skull on the counter, but not a trophy. It was an altar-piece, black wax pooled in the eye sockets. Saw the edge of a black robe vanish behind a curtain. Heard footsteps coming from the back. That was all the confirmation I needed. I left before they saw me." Yet there was also the matter of the guards.

"I knew the father of that little boy was alive..."

"I mean, it was a gamble. Since I figured out they were cultists, they would at least keep their victims alive until the sacrifice." But perhaps the luckiest part was Lucid discovering a band of traveling soldiers clad in what seemed to be Vex's uniform, passing through the Blue Woods. He briefly carved a trail of blood leading toward the cathedral where the prisoners were being transported, from a self-inflicted wound.

"I prayed that they would follow the trail from there on." he muttered as he saw soldiers burst in from the cathedrals walls, making him smile.

"But how did you know the father was alive?" Alice asked.

"Chain of Heart… the guard's heart was beating unusually fast, as if he were trying to hide something." Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"Guess that works as a lie detector too. Thanks to you."

"Awhh… do not mention it, my mortal. It is my duty to help you," Alice replied. The betrayal had been the hardest sell. Waiting for Ayame to finally succumb to the exhaustion she fought so hard against, feigning sleep himself until the innkeeper's creaking steps approached their door.

'I had to make them believe they had us.'

"The sedation… it was potent. I could feel its weight," Alice mused.

"Our shared trait," Lucid reminded her, a hint of pride cutting through the fatigue.

"Chain of Heart. Weakens foreign influences. Poisons, drugs, sedation. Felt like wading through mud, but my mind stayed clear. When they dragged us down here, I played dead until the moment was right. Took a cloak from the guard who was a little too slow turning a corner."

"You blended with them," Alice said, and he could sense her awe, a strange, warm pulse in his chest.

"You chanted their words. You walked as they did. This… cunning, independent side. You have never shown its full scope. Not even to me."

"Had to be convincing. They were fanatics, not fools. Besides there are a lot of things you don't know about me...." He finally turned his head slightly, his gaze finding Ayame where she stood half chained down beside him, a tense, silent statue. He could feel the fury radiating from her like heat from a banked forge.

'The punch. She's never going to let that go.' He'd have to weather that storm later.

"Your plan was one of immense risk," Alice pressed, her tone shifting to one of solemn concern.

"The flame… it was pure, corruptive fate essence. A cancer of will. To jump into it was madness."

"It was the only way to get the boy clear of that other acolyte. And you said your essence could overwrite it."

"A theory! A hypothesis based on fate resonance! It was not a certainty!"

"It was a good enough bet," Lucid said, a ghost of a smile touching his lips.

"And you came through. Your clean fate essence burned the corruption out. Like purging a poison."

"And the binding? The chains that hold them now?"

"A happy side effect. Chain of Heart doesn't just heal me. It is also a weapon now remember?. Their malignant faith was a kind of chaos. The chains are a manifestation of that ordering principle. The more wicked they are the harder it strains" He shrugged, the motion tight in the confined space.

"I crafted the plan around what we are, Alice. Not just what we can do."

"What now?" she asked.

"The soldiers are here. The immediate threat is bound. Why must we flee?"

"Because to them, I'm not a hero. I'm the masked man in the ritual circle. I'm a question mark. And question marks get dragged into dungeons for 'questioning' that involves thumbscrews and no windows." He nodded toward the fissure.

"Rescue's here. Their job is to clean up this mess and get the boy back to his father. Our job now well.. it is to vanish."

"I am… confused. This is not a logical conclusion. We assisted."

"We survived. That's the only conclusion that matters." He pushed off from the wall, turning fully to Ayame. Her red eyes were locked on him, blazing with a complex fire. gratitude warring with a profound, personal offense. The chain mark was a dark necklace on her skin.

'Yeah. She's going to make me pay for that.'

"Can you run?" he asked, his voice low. For a long moment, she just stared, as if weighing his entire soul against the ache in her jaw. The silence stretched, filled with the distant shouts of soldiers and the clank of manacles. Finally, she gave a single, sharp nod. It was not forgiveness. It was an acknowledgment of necessity.

"I can run." It was enough. Lucid glanced back once at the scene the bound cultists, the reunited father and son, the extinguished fire. A knot of something uncoiled in his chest. Not pride, exactly. Something quieter. Fulfillment. Satisfaction perhaps.

"Then let's go," he said.

"This cathedral gives me the creeps." Together, they slipped into the jagged darkness of the fissure. With a quick, fluid motion, Lucid threw a chain up to a fractured rafter high above. He pulled Ayame close against him just as a guard's blade swept through the space they'd occupied a heartbeat before, the steel humming in a clean, dizzying arc. As they swung upward, Lucid glanced down. His eyes found the chained individuals below, and then the little boy, now safe in his father's arms.

He managed to shoot the child a quick, discreet thumbs-up. The boy looked up, and a spark of recognition lit his tear-streaked face, followed by a small, contented smile. He understood who was behind the blinding light and the broken chains. This was where they parted, nonetheless.

'Goodness, Lucid, you are holding her far too close,' Alice's voice chimed in his mind, a note of prim disapproval in her tone.

'Ah. So you're suggesting I drop her?' he thought back, the ghost of a smirk touching his lips as the chain carried them in a wide, soaring arc across the cavernous interior.

'Oh, I am not at all against that idea,' Alice replied airily. After the dizzying swing, they landed in a secluded, shadowed gallery just above the main cathedral floor, where a large stained-glass window had long since been shattered, leaving a skeletal frame open to the night. This was the same route Lucid had used to infiltrate the place hours earlier. Without a word, he took Ayame's arm in a firm, urgent grip and ran, pulling her through the broken window and out into the waiting silence.

The cold, blue-hued forest swallowed them whole. He didn't slow, leading them on a swift, sure path through the pines, the distant shouts from the cathedral fading with every step. They were finally escaping, finally heading toward their true destination.

'Well,' Lucid mused to Alice as they ran, the adrenaline beginning to recede, leaving behind a weary, brittle triumph, 'that went about as well as it could have.'