When Diarmuid arrived at Lady Sabina's house, it was in a similar state in chaos to Sextus's home, though the rush and the panicking was coming solely from the servants and slaves and not the mistress of the household. Precious possessions and documents were being stored in suitable chests and packed on a carriage waiting by the back door. Diarmuid strolled inside without anyone paying him attention until he encountered Sabina who was going through some papers and documents. When she heard the steady footsteps amidst the hurrying ones, she did not need to turn to know to whom these sturdy steps belonged.
"I see Sextus did send you here."
"What choice did he have?"
The lancer replied rhetorically, to which Sabina smiled smugly as she stated.
"And you came."
To repeat the same reply was an insult and a direct admission of her possession of him, so he returned her insult with another.
"You are the one who called for my protection."
"Protection is the last thing I need now."
"Then what do you need me for?"
"You will know, soon enough."
Diarmuid was already tired of her guessing games and puzzled words so he did not argue. He leaned on the wall watching her organizing her papers, holding dearly to them more than her own possessions, while a maid was packing her lady's clothes and jewelries, she was even trusted enough to store the golden bars and coins into another chest.
"I suppose you have also secured a safe route for escaping."
"It was at my uncle's insistence. He planned for everything tonight."
Now that he knew that Laurentius was the one truly responsible for the woman's safety, Diarmuid did not hold a single doubt that she would survive and arrive safely at her destination. The question remained, what did she want of him?
"If the esteemed counselor had arranged for everything, I do not see any need for my presence, unless you are seeking company, like last time."
Sabina closed the chest she was stacking her papers in, the one holding his freedom probably there as well, and turned at the lancer who seemed eager to be anywhere but here.
"Do you have another place you wish to be at?"
Diarmuid glared at her. He did not know what state Germanous was in, and he was surprised he still had not called for him. One call, one chance to protect the man he had pledged his loyalty to and perhaps then his past treason could be redeemed.
"Do not worry, Diarmuid. I will send you soon there."
Sabina spoke with the same smugness. The lancer had always been a transparent sheet to her. But through her smug smile, Diarmuid's eyes spotted a hint of relief brought by his presence.
Everyone feared death, even the iciest of gods' creations, he supposed.
"How could Sextus part with you so easily? The man loved you, you know…"
Her choice of words were meant for provocation, but she did not succeed this time as the lancer replied through a sigh the woman did not see coming.
"He merely admired the ghost of a man, and these sorts of ghosts do not exist."
Sabina should have been content with this confession, but the wandering gaze of the man standing next to her reminded her of the man she built hopes upon, with his constant daydreaming and wandering gazes. She did not like this, but not to the degree she expected she would hate it. A little bitter, she spoke through gritted teeth.
"You wish to protect that man?"
"Even if I wanted to, will you allow me?"
"As if you will wait for my permission to do that."
Was she jealous? Was she disappointed? Neither mattered, there was still nothing to protect Germanous from. The city so far was merely sieged and the garrisons led by Laurentius were succeeding in returning every ambush and attack.
"You poor man…"
Sabina sighed similarly to how the lancer did earlier, and he was not fond of being called that but she went on, stepping closer to him.
"You deem yourself a ghost of a man, how would you then protect another ghost?"
Diarmuid titled his head glaring, but this was not enough to stop Sabina from going on.
"Tonight, you shall restore your honor… I will task you with the greatest deed a man can aim and hope for… and then you will be truly free!"
Diarmuid could tell she did not mean protecting her or the city, but was alluding to a whole other deed. One he could guess but decided to refuse to carry on when time came to it.
"We are ready, my lady."
The maid tasked with overseeing the evacuation of the household came in and announced this.
Sabina took a long breath, her eyes briefly shifted to the window, as if wishing to look at the city from the haven of her home one last time, but she quickly turned her face away, delivering the last small chest to the servant girl.
"Are you feeling homesick already?"
Diarmuid sneered, his old wounds of missing home, while not reopening, still serving as a tool for his mockery and disdain of the woman, but she was in less disdainful mood herself.
"Are you expecting my sympathies?"
"Never."
"It is true perception is a lancer's strongest asset."
Sabina finished her remark, then donned her long cape and warped herself in it. It was cold outside, but she knew it will soon be heated and turned into a great pyre by the invading tribes who did not stop burning the villages and cities they invaded, leaving them in ashes and blood. Diarmuid did not expect they would be running away so fast, but it made sense not to wait until the city's walls have been preached. The beats of his heart stuttered, he had to remain behind but she would not allow it. So he figured, he will pay one last debt to here, accompanying her to the safest point then retreating to Germanous, consequences be damned.
Sabina looked around the emptied room, checking she had not forgotten anything of importance and the lancer wanted to remind her that her life should be the only important thing to her, but she seemed to value her documents and official papers on the same level as her life. She moved toward the door of the room, while fixing her coat, then stopped for a moment, silent, not doing anything. At this sudden halt, Diarmuid stood straight up, expecting she will be finally revealing her true desire from him but what he got instead were eyes seething with fury, and lips trembling with anger.
"My father served this city well, he passed justice on everyone never looking at their backgrounds. Nobles and commoners weighed in the same scale. My uncle started to manipulate the justice my father ensured to anchor as this city's sole virtue… but the people supported Marcus and loved him… I do not believe this was a trait he passed down to his offspring… Germanous had always been twisted… the false dreams and power he prides himself with are an innate madness that could not be redeemed and now, the entire city who supported his father, and then supported him despite their frank dislike of him shall pay the price… A befitting end to their hypocrisy, do not you think so, Diarmuid?"
"So you disdain the people of this city as well?"
"I disdain their lack of will, their contentment with low demands. As long as they were amused and could continue manipulating each other, they were fine with
Germanous by making him bear the cross. It is only suitable and logical that this province is destroyed during his reign."
Diarmuid remained silent. He got involved enough in the this city's politics to know that her words were not wrong. But he still held an affection for a dreaming man who could not find his means, or did not know how to use them. This idea left the lancer feeling guilty at the distance both men created between themselves, and never dared to take the first step to shorten it. He himself was a man with many dreams, and he still held some though they resembled vague visions now… was not his freedom his ultimate dream for the past years? Where did that desire go? He could easily kill this woman now and rip the document or twist her bones till she signs his freedom yet a sense of accountability toward her perished this idea from his mind. He never liked her, and favored Germanous and his dreams way more. Given the choice, he would leap to the man's aid right now but she was still compelling him to stay by her side till this moment, as she continued to ravel more layers to Germanous's person.
"The war is not lost yet."
"What, you will alter this city's and Germanous's fate with your blades? Wake up, lancer…"
Diarmuid knitted his eyebrows at the last sentence but Sabina was not insulting him. She was looking at him the way a child looks at a kicked puppy. She approached him sighing.
"What Germanous's promised you were mere words and you have nothing to defend him with but mere words."
Words were nothing if not coupled with actions, which Germanous tried to but failed miserably at, unleashing his dreams without setting a proper boundary for it, bankrupting the city and leaving it with no defense. Only fools believed in words, and Diarmuid was not different. He believed in Grainne words of love, he believed in Sextus words of greatness, he believed in Oscar's words of friendship. He believed his own words of nobility and honor that never manifested again after the night he eloped with the princess. Standing as en equal fool by Germanous's side drew for him the perfect picture of redemption, a ragged thread he still held tightly.
Sabina beckoned to him to follow her, and he obeyed intending to break loose the moment she was safe, naming this intent in place of a hesitation, an honorable duty toward a lady who asked for his help, choosing willingly to ignore their status temporarily. To his surprise she asked him to ride the carriage by her side, contrary to his expectation of riding along the carriage to defend her against any assaults. It seemed as if she wanted to keep him safe until she reached her final decision. The spear wielder did not protest and sat by her side. Not once did she glance at his enchanting twin blades like the others used to when given the chance to view them up close. She was not a woman to struggle with words, but her current pondering along the journey proved she was seeking the proper words or perhaps thinking of something else entirely. Her process of thought and actions could never be predicted. They traveled for two hours before the eruption of wailing cries at the sight of collapsing walls. Even the stoic woman was startled by the quickness of the city's fall and preach. She looked back, the city was within seconds submerged in fire and smoke, even the lancer seemed at loss of words at this scene. His grip around his blades tightened and he started to fidget in his seat, ready to jump into action.
Amidst the man - made fog, a rider was trailing them, and Sabina ordered the carriage to stop to allow him to catch up. So he was a friend apparently.
"You want Germanous dead, is this not correct?"
Diarmuid wanted to clarify things quickly, and after taking another look at hungry towering fires, she answered with a simple "yes.".
"For what purpose?"
"To be made an example of, to remind all dreamers that reality exits, and its rules cannot be altered and its facts are indisputable. A man should not jump beyond what he had been bestowed with, regardless of how little that may be. We are here to fulfill our roles, and he played his as the fool, and excelled in it."
"Is not his defeat a proper example?"
Sabina adjusted her sitting position so she was close to the lancer's face, and her eyes did not betray or reflect a shade of self – satisfaction as she made her demand and case. What she was about to say were facts, facts the lancer ignored lost in Germanous's garden of dreams grown from eloquent promises and twisted words.
"He does not deserve to die as a hero protecting his city…"
Diarmuid raised his head, and to the woman's dismay an unwanted flicker of hope shone through the man's golden eyes. He thought Germanous had already fled, but he was still there, in his city of dreams and failure, standing.
"I do not condemn a man's dreams, but when he possess the will and power to exact them yet refuse to do so, then he is a curse, a parasite on the foundations that shape us and upon which humanity stands."
Diarmuid stared back at the woman, still adamant on defending the man as he himself was as sore loser like the governor. He had dreamt of a beautiful life with the princess that never came to be, he had dreamt of saving Oscar and ended up killing him, justifying the action as a redemption to the boy's sullied heart. But Sabina took her time speaking, her tone unshaken like the flames that continued to tower and devour the city.
"Do you believe Germanous could not free you the day of your trial? Do you believe he could not order me to do so? Even if I had refused, you think he have nothing on me to force my hand? He simply, selfishly, wanted me to serve as an anchor that ensures you stay by his side!"
The tight grip with which Diarmuid held his spears started to shake, his eyes widening as Sabina retrieved from her clothes a single paper.
"He made you forget your dream and lose it to his own. I was not the one holding you prisoner, it was him."
Sabina stated, and with firm hands unlike the warrior's next to her, she ripped the document apart in two pieces then four, the lancer's slavery shredded to tiny pieces falling onto his lap.
"Can you still call yourself a free man now, or are you still entranced by Germanous's allure of dreams?"
"He could have saved you and saved Oscar with a single command, if he had wanted to use his authority without being a coward fearing your abandonment. He wanted to seize you for himself!"
Sabina held to the lancer's arms to ensure her case was justified, that the reason she had chosen him was justified. It was twisted indeed but not without a reason.
"Anyone who would kill Germanous will have to die, it is a must. He who kills must be killed and I did not want to bear that guilt. But when I saw you defy that logic and fight for your life and win it, I knew you can do it… a mad man who will give me both the reason and the mean to kill him. In your raving dreams you had joined his, and with his failure you will avenge yours."
The lancer remained silent throughout, comprehending what Germanous truly was. While he was wallowing and struggling to fulfill his duties and vows toward him, Germanous still did not trust to be by his side without a binding contract. He did not even try saving him from the stigma of slavery while he could, showering him instead with useless praises and honorifics that he could bestow for real but did not.
"He claims to be a lion, but he is not… he is not even a sly fox… he is a crippled hyena that can only sneer at others' failures and call it lack of talent while envying others' successes attributing them to fortune and luck.. And you of all should be wounded the most from his betrayal because you are not lucky… you bent with your power and talent, your raw savage talent, your own fate!"
When the woman received no answer or protest from the freed man, she knew she had made the right choice, her eyes had never betrayed her. The moment she saw him in that arena, shedding blood as if he was flowering dreams, fighting as if he was conquering every rule and defying every possibility she knew he was her chosen man to carry justice to her broken dreams. Such a man could kill Germanous, only when he was truly freed, not from a piece of paper but from the roses Germanous had deceived him with.
"Would killing Germanous make you happy?"
The lancer did not refute or argue, he did not even seek affirmation from the woman, and though he was a free man now, who could easily turn down her order, he raised his head asking her directly, and it was that frenzied dimness that overtook the golden orbs what made her bet on this particular man.
"He should not die a hero, that's a fact, a necessary fact to be established."
Without adding any words, the lancer regained his strong hold over his twin blades, and Sabina did not need to ask him where he was heading. But the moment he stepped out of the carriage, the rider that had been trailing them had arrived and it was none other than Laurentius arriving in a bloodied armor and unsheathed sword soaked with blood. His eyes meet the lancer's but he did not question what was the latter up to. Diarmuid looked at the man with the same disdain he used to look at any Roman he encountered with, commenting:
"So the esteemed counselor had decided to flee, after all."
Laurentius paid him no attention until he checked that his niece was still safe. He told her and the coach man:
"The way ahead is still safe, but you should not waste any more time. I will follow you when the battle is over."
"I am certain you will make it back safely."
Diarmuid scuffed at Sabina's remark, was Laurentius's invincibility another fact Sabina believed in?
The hatred and desire for revenge that were quelled down by Germanous's dreams at the forest, by his speech back then, by his visions for a better city and disdain for the commoners' vulgarity which he shared with the lancer were now remnants of something, a dream, shared once but now completely shattered by the facts Sabina elaborated. This was not a world for dreamers who could not peruse their dreams, and as a failure like Germanous, he was truly the most suitable man to kill him and end his dreams, the same his were ended. It was not meant to be a bitter revenge, or a an act done out of a logical conclusion. It was simply a merciful end to a man who did not show his own dreams mercy by realizing what was possible and what was not, by not showing them the light of the day with his lack of will and hesitations and fears of stepping over that thin lines that separated dreams from reality ye still allowed them to cross of backed with a courageous will.
Despite Sabina's words that reignited his hatred for the men who enslaved him and humiliated him, that was not the case with Germanous. He hated him because he hated himself, and he knew that when he will slay him, he will be slaying his own reflection in the same cracked mirror they saw their dreams through.