Then, without another word, he walked up to me and placed his arms very tightly around my waist. I hugged him back, tears seeping from the corners of my magicless eyes and soaking into the fabric of his spotless uniform. It was all too easy to reach around him; he was so small. Small, yes, but also strong. The strongest, toughest, most brilliant man I ever met in my life.
Cease pulled back a little and stared at me intently, our noses nearly brushing. And, my breath caught in my chest when I saw something creep across his face that had never been there before, as far as I knew. A smile.
“You’re not just really, really red,” he said, smiling and stroking my hair. “You’re beautiful.”
And, with that, he touched my chin with his frozen fingertips, tilted my head up, and softly pressed his ice-colds lips against mine. I closed my eyes, a shiver running down my spine. Cease was usually so rough around the edges, so aggressive, I wouldn’t have guessed he was capable of such gentleness. Then, he kissed me again. And, again. My memory wasn’t perfect anymore, so it was hard to keep track of how long we went. Only once we were out of breath—quite a feat for a pair of divers—did he pull away.
And, he put his lips to my ear and whispered a phrase in Conflagrian I never taught him.
“I love you.”
I knew, as I embraced him for the last time in my life, it was his attachment to me that salvaged the remaining traces of his humanity. By learning to love me—putting me above everything he was told he was born for, learning that ends didn’t justify means—he recovered the small part of Cease the human that the Childhood Program didn’t manage to extinguish when they forged him into the killing machine known as Commander Lechatelierite, Leader of the Ichthyothian Resistance.
But, I knew, it’d be unthinkable to stay in Ichthyosis when my people so desperately needed me. And, it’d be even more unthinkable to ask Cease to leave his military world and his icy nation to follow me to the Island of Fire where he’d never belong. I thought, when I joined the Nurro-Ichthyothian military, I’d found my new home. I thought, when I was deported six ages ago, I’d never willingly return to where my family died. But, I was wrong. As much as Conflagria needed me, I needed it. The lives of Cease and I were simply cleaving in opposite directions. And, I knew our disparate paths could never reconcile, just as the elements of fire and ice could never unify. If they tried, they’d destroy each other.
We walked, hand in hand, to the exit, where I reluctantly let him go, drew my hood, and ventured into the furious snow. I boarded the ship where Nurtic and Fair were waiting, and we slowly receded from the frosted shore of Ichthyosis, where I knew I’d never willingly set foot again. From the vessel’s dock, I peered back at Icicle to look at Cease one last time, but my magicless eyes were too weak to see as far as the doorway where he stood.
Cease Lechatelierite
The war was over. Ichthyosis won. I was, as the media declared, ‘the brilliant war hero who led his fleet to victory, once and for all, against the tyrannical South Conflagrablaze Captive.’ The Trilateral Committee promoted me to admiral and awarded me the highest honor a diver could receive—a ‘Silver Triangle’ medal. It was everything I always wanted. But, somehow, this long-awaited moment just didn’t feel as beautiful as I expected it to be, my whole life. The victory felt strangely empty. There was something missing from it. I knew, I didn’t deserve to stand in the limelight alone. I wasn’t the one who reached into the Fire Pit to destroy the Crystal. There was someone else who should’ve been standing beside me now, giving meaning to my success, giving my life a new purpose.
You see, something snapped in me when I saw Scarlet dangle from my wire, an inch away from burning to death in the Fire Pit. If she fell in, the Crystal would’ve ended and Ichthyosis would’ve won, just the same. I could’ve let it happen; it would’ve been so easy. It was what the Trilateral Committee and the Childhood Program would’ve wanted me to do in that situation, considering how unlikely it was we’d find another way to destroy the Crystal. But, hearing Scarlet speak the truth about me as she hung there—how I was too cold to care for human life as much as I did for winning—pierced me to the core. She helped me understand just what I was fighting for—a nation of people like her, people who lived to love one another. I never realized that before. All along, I just wanted to win for the sake of winning. Because the Childhood Program told me to. But, now, I realized ends didn’t justify means. I never considered death and destruction as the necessary evils of war, just the necessities of war. Now, I felt guilty for what I did to people like Fair Gabardine, Scarlet’s best friend. Since my release from the hospital wing, I tried several times to apologize to her. But, every time I went to her room and tried to speak, she started screaming at the top of her lungs in Conflagrian and wouldn’t stop until I left. Not that I blamed her.
Now, every minute of every day, I felt like I was holding onto a live wire. Everything made me… react, internally. I felt so helpless. So out-of-control. I wasn’t used to that. I couldn’t think about the past without feeling literally sick inside. I mean, sick. Stomachaches, headaches, night-sweats, shaking. Because I couldn’t live with myself.
The pain got worse when I thought of Scarlet, which was often. I supposed, on top of everything else, I was reacting to her absence. The Nurians expressed the same sort of anguish when they talked about their families. They called it, ‘missing’ someone. I wasn’t used to this particular brand of agony, as I’d only attached once before to someone who disappeared so suddenly. And, missing Scarlet hurt more and hurt differently than missing Inexor ever did. I didn’t know what to expect of this grieving process in the months and ages to come.
Scarlet was gone. Gone to fulfill yet another duty, gone to make one more sacrifice for her people. She found her next purpose in life, and it wasn’t to be with me.
I had a new goal, too. I wanted to dismantle the Childhood Program. I wanted to reform the Ichthyothian military training system so soldiers weren’t abducted and trained from birth, but allowed to independently enlist, as adults. I wanted soldiers to understand the sacrifice they were making and exactly what and who they were fighting for.
“Admiral Lechatelierite!” came a voice on my intercom. “Admiral, your presence is requested in the lobby.”
I sighed, internally. Since I was discharged from the hospital wing early last week, not a day went by without having to endure either crowds of worshipful government officials or offsite interviews with overly-adoring civilian journalists and news anchors. The Trilateral Committee—which I was now technically a part of, since I was an admiral, though I still didn’t know what my job with them entailed—welcomed the publicity with enthusiasm and pushed me into every possible spotlight. For a soldier out of combat, I had quite a full schedule.
The interviews were very difficult for me. The Trilateral Committee didn’t want Scarlet’s name or contribution mentioned. A Conflagrian serving in the Diving Fleet—moreover, a Conflagrian winning the war for Ichthyosis—was the biggest scandal of the Ichthyothian military world. Even after saving the alliance, Scarlet still wasn’t one of them. She was a person of the fire, and we were people of the ice, and the Trilateral Committee could look no further than that. This made me furious beyond belief, but whenever I ignored their orders and brought up Scarlet in an interview, it was edited out.
I trudged down the corridors with Illia now, to meet my mystery visitors. All my appointments were scheduled by my gatekeepers, the Trilateral Committee. But, oddly enough, they didn’t inform me in advance of this one.
“Your guests won’t be able to stay long, as they have business matters to tend to, back home,” Illia said. “And, the Trilateral Committee thought it best to keep things brief.”
“What are you talking ab—” My voice died in my throat when I caught sight of Leavesleft standing with a middle-aged couple, awaiting my arrival.
The woman had long, tousled, dark hair. The man had intense, silver-grey eyes.
I pulled my visua
l band slowly off my face.
“Mother?” I whispered in disbelief. “Father?”
“We’re proud of you, son,” said the father I never knew, face stoic.
My mother ran to me, tears streaming down her pale cheeks. “Oh, Cease, we didn’t want to give you up, we really didn’t,” she sobbed in my ear as she threw her arms around me. “But, we had no choice!”
I stood there, stiff and uncomfortable, and she wept into my shoulder. It took a moment before it occurred to me that I should embrace her, too. I felt awkward as I did so, elbows out. I stared over her shoulder, meeting my father’s oddly-familiar gaze. “Don’t worry,” I said, solemnly. “No other parents will have to go through what you’ve been through, handing over their newborns to the military. I’ll see to that myself.” I swallowed. “I promise.”
Scarlet July
We were only about twenty miles from Conflagria’s northern shore. Fair and I were almost home. I leaned against the railing and felt something hard bump my leg. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my crystal fragment. ‘It’ll keep you strong,’ a System guard told me six ages ago, when he thrust it into my hand. Now, I understood. This was a fragment of the Core Crystal. The guard gave it to me in a moment of defiance, hoping it’d help sustain my aura when thousands of miles from home. That’s why the distance didn’t hurt me as much as it should’ve. All these ages, this little stone gave me life.
But, now, without spectrum, it was nothing but a rough, greyish, oval rock. Useless. I no longer felt even a hint of residual attachment to it. I pitched it into the water with all my might. It glinted in the sunlight as it soared through the air and dropped into the Fervor Sea.
A moment later, Fair joined me at the rail, smiling at the approaching landmass of Conflagria. She was happy to come home, plain and simple. She wasn’t leaving behind anything or anyone she cared about. I now knew the mystery behind Inexor’s odd behavior toward Cease when he returned to Icicle: somehow, during his months of captivity, he’d come to care for Fair. The prisoner fell for his captor. But, Fair didn’t reciprocate. She wasn’t bothered by leaving Inexor behind. As she told me just minutes ago, his broken heart meant nothing to her. To some degree, I envied her for this. I wished I could feel the same sense of freedom upon leaving Ichthyosis.
Fair was giving me an odd look, now. Despite my military training, I still wasn’t very good at keeping a stoic stare. Whatever I thought or felt tended to show up on my face.
“You love him, don’t you?” she asked. “Your commander.”
My heart leapt into my throat. How did she know? No one was supposed to know. The truth could get Cease court-martialed, if it ever got out. I was planning on taking the secret to my grave.
“Nurtic Leavesleft and I were coming to get you from the mess hall, so we could all leave, when we…saw you two,” Fair began.
Saw us. Holding each other. Whispering. Kissing. Oh, Tincture. Someone in the military witnessed Cease and I violating the Laws of Emotional Protection. But, Nurtic was my friend. I could trust Nurtic not to babble. He cared about me, and he wouldn’t want to ruin Cease’s career, either.
“Nurtic literally had to hold me down, or else I would’ve ran in there and pried Cease’s filthy hands off of you. Nurtic made us take a backdoor and wait for you here on the ship, instead.” Fair exhaled through her nose. “Scarlet, I don’t see how you could love him, after all he’s done. After what he did to me.”
I was already at capacity, as far as emotional pain was concerned. I wasn’t in the mood to feel like a traitor to my best friend. I couldn’t cope with it now, not when the ache of losing Cease was only hours old.
“I don’t know how he got you under his spell, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was just using you,” she went on, mercilessly, “because there’s no way he actually loves you back. There’s no way a person like him is capable.”
How dare she! “Maybe that’d be true if he were the same person as when we first met,” I said, defensively. “But, he’s not like that anymore. He’s changed.”
“Changed,” Fair spat. “Sure. And, how long have you known him, exactly? How fast was this so-called change?”
My insides squirmed. I knew of Cease for about an age now, but only started interacting with him since the end of May. “Two months.”
Fair snorted.
“We’ve been through a lot together,” I added, feebly. “It was a very intense two months.”
“Right. Inexor told me all about the Childhood Program; you’re telling me two months reversed seventeen ages of brainwashing?”
“Fair, when Cease didn’t think I could destroy the Crystal and get out alive, he was willing to leave Conflagria without doing it. That mission was the last chance he had, to salvage the war for Ichthyosis—the Trilateral Committee would’ve forced us to surrender to the System, if we failed. The war is Cease’s whole life, and he was willing to throw it all away. For me. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.”
“Well, I can never forgive him,” Fair folded her arms across her chest, “for what he did to me. And, I can never forgive you, Scarlet, for loving someone who’d do that to your best friend.”
Fair started to turn away, but I grabbed her shoulders. Hard. Her eyes went wide at my use of physical force.
“I see you’ve learned from your commander!”
“Fair, listen to me,” I breathed, staring into her oil-black eyes. “What’s the difference between the Conflagrian System and the Ichthyothian Childhood Program? One uses magical thought-control and the other indoctrinates kids from birth—they both produce the same results! I don’t condone Cease’s actions, but if there’s no excuse for what he did, there’s also no excuse for what you’ve done, too. You betrayed me to the System, on July twenty-fifth of the eighty-seventh age.”
Fair stopped breathing.
“I forgave you for selling me out; I know you only did that because you didn’t know any better,” I went on. “So, I ask nothing more than for you to forgive me for loving someone who’s also had to fight against mental shackles his whole life.” I let go of Fair’s shoulders and instinctively held out my hand, like a Nordic. “We need to be able to trust one another, if we’re going to spend the rest of our lives working together to rebuild Conflagria. Do you accept my apology?”
Fair hesitated, temples pulsing. After a minute that felt more like an hour, she swatted my hand aside and pulled me in for a hug.
Her tears fell on the top of my head. “Only a true friend would forgive me for what I did,” she cried. “It’s tormented me for six ages, and now you finally lifted the burden. I’m sorry for making you feel guilty about Cease. If his memory makes you happy, then by all means, go ahead and love him.”
The deck jolted beneath our feet; we arrived. Fair’s words rang in my head. His memory. That was all I’d ever have of Cease. He’d be nothing more than a phantom in my mind, from now on. I adjusted my robe, stepped off the metal Ichthyothian deck and walked, barefoot, on the glimmering, Conflagrian sand. I was now the leader of a revolution. And, I no longer had two magic sources to set me apart from everyone. No, I didn’t have a photon of spectrum anymore, but I had something better.
A smile. A single smile on a precious face.
That was the way I wanted to remember him. My memory wasn’t perfect anymore, so I knew it’d take effort to keep that smile at the forefront of my mind. But, I’d do it. I’d remember a soldier who never had much to smile about in his life, whose face once glowed with happiness despite all the pain that came with being Cease Terminus Lechatelierite. Though he was three-thousand miles away on the icy nation of North Ichthyosis, a part of him would always live on in the fiery island of the South Conflagrablaze Captive, for I’d always hold him in my heart, whatever I did, wherever I went.
Table of Contents
Part 1
Chapter1
Chapter2
Chapter3
Chapter4
Chapter5
&nbs
p; Chapter6
Chapter7
Chapter8
Chapter9
Chapter10
Chapter11
Chapter12
Chapter13
Chapter14
Chapter15
Chapter16
Chapter17
Chapter18
Chapter19
Chapter20
Part 2
Chapter22
Chapter23
Chapter24
Chapter25
Chapter26
Chapter27
Chapter28
Chapter29
Chapter30
Chapter31
Chapter32
Chapter33
Chapter34
Chapter35
Chapter36
Chapter37
Chapter38
Chapter39
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