They sat in a familiar place where they had been staying for a while, the tavern that had kicked them out near the harbor, it was briefly here, a strange full circle moment that none of them had expected, Fenwick was drinking a jug of mug, another after another, really proficiently, his movements smooth and practiced, as if he had been doing this for years rather than weeks.
Arthur sat at a stool by the counter next to him, he seemed to drink as well, but in a slow way, a slow manner, his stomach seemed like an empty bottomless pit that was built for over consumption rather than speed, he took measured sips, letting each swallow settle before reaching for the next, his eyes fixed on the middle distance, lost in thought.
They had pretty much out drunk all of the people inside there, bottles lined up like soldiers on a battlefield, empty and defeated, the bartender watched them with a mixture of awe and concern, unsure whether to be impressed or to cut them off.
Lucid looked at them in confusion, his head tilted, his expression unreadable beneath the mist, he had never understood the appeal of drinking to excess, the way it dulled the senses and clouded the mind, but he supposed everyone had their own way of coping with the weight of existence.
Ayame sat beside him, their shoulders and thighs slightly touching, the warmth of her presence a constant reassurance, he had grown accustomed to their frequent closeness, and he did not know whether it was by purpose or accident, whether she sought out the contact or simply did not bother to avoid it, either way, he had stopped questioning it.
He looked over at her, she was eating raw meat, a plate of crimson slices that she consumed with the efficiency of a predator, she inhaled an entire plate full of raw meat, her movements precise and unselfconscious, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he watched her observing her, the way her jaw worked, the way her eyes half closed with satisfaction.
'No one is normal,' he thought, shaking his head slightly, 'every single person in this group is broken in their own unique way, and somehow, we have all ended up in the same place, at the same time, drinking and eating and pretending that everything is fine.'
The person across the table spoke in a low measured tone, their voice cutting through the ambient noise of the tavern, "So, when are you planning on returning to the kingdom of Vex?"
Lucid looked up, his eyes focusing on the speaker, it was Fenwick, who had set down his mug and was now looking at him with a serious expression, his earlier drunkenness seeming to have evaporated in the face of the question.
Lucid was silent for a moment, considering the question, it was one he had been avoiding, one he had pushed to the back of his mind in favor of more immediate concerns, but now it was here, laid out in front of him like a challenge he could not ignore.
"I do not know," he said finally, his voice quiet, "there is still work to be done here, the Domain is still active, and I cannot leave until I know it is truly gone."
Fenwick nodded, his expression thoughtful, "I understand, but you cannot stay here forever, Lucid, you have a life to return to, people who are waiting for you."
Lucid let out a hollow laugh, "People waiting for me, I am not sure I have anyone waiting for me anywhere, Fenwick, I have been running for so long that I have forgotten what it feels like to stop."
Ayame's hand found his under the table, her fingers intertwining with his, the gesture was small, almost unconscious, but it carried a weight that words could not express, he looked at her, and she met his gaze with those dark, unreadable eyes.
"Then do not stop," she said, her voice flat but carrying a note of something that might have been tenderness, "keep running, keep fighting, keep moving forward, and when you finally stop, I will be there, waiting for you."
Lucid looked at his cup. "Tomorrow. Maybe. I am starting to appreciate it here." He glanced toward the door, then back. "That queen is a genuine problem and I am not particularly excited about returning to The kingdom of Vex."
Celeste's expression went through a change that was brief but visible. Something settled behind her eyes that had not been there before.
"I would advise keeping yourself prepared," she said. Her voice had dropped slightly without becoming a whisper, a calibration that carried its own kind of weight.
The table went quiet in the organic way that tables do when something shifts in the register of a conversation.
Ayame set her utensil down down and looked at Celeste directly. "Why."
Celeste held the pause for a moment, her attention moving briefly across the room, checking the positions of the nobles at the side table and their guards before she continued.
"The queen's coronation arrived at a condensed timing," she said. "I have heard what happened at the Academy of Vex. The rift incident. The golden pathway rail incident." Her eyes moved to Lucid for a moment. "I have heard that certain individuals were involved in both."
Lucid nodded without elaborating.
"The paladin Lyssandra has been stationed at the north of Vex," Celeste continued. "A small settlement called Frostwell. She had been stationed there coincidentally at the same time the king departed for an expedition in the same region."
The table stayed quiet.
"He died there," Celeste said.
No one spoke.
"Coincident with the Sky Sundered Saint being stationed in the same location," she added.
Arthur set his cup down slowly. The drinking contest appeared to have concluded without announcement as he made his way over to them. "Are you suggesting the paladin was involved in an assassination attempt on the king."
"I am observing a sequence of events," Celeste replied. "Why would the paladin of Vex move against the king when she is sworn to the royal line."
"Precisely," Celeste said. "Unless the question is not why she would act against royalty. But rather which royalty she was acting for." She looked around the table. "At the time of the king's death, the only members of the royal line remaining were Princess Elara. Now the only surviving member."
The implication reached everyone at different speeds.
"The queen's rising," Arthur said quietly.
"You cannot call those coincidences," Ayame said, her voice flat and certain.
"No," Celeste agreed. "You cannot."
Lucid looked at his grape juice. He thought about Lyssandra inside the rift, the sword raised above the princess, the formal declaration of judgment delivered with absolute certainty. He thought about what certainty of that particular quality required behind it.
He looked up.
"Where are the other members?" Lucid asked, his voice carrying a note of cautious curiosity, the question hanging in the air like a blade suspended by a thread.
Celeste spoke, her tone flat and distant, as if she were reciting facts from a book she had read long ago and no longer cared about, "Well, there was her little brother, Prince Knut, who died peacefully in his sleep, and the queen of Vex, the originally former one, who peacefully died inside her bath."
Lucid looked confused, his brow furrowing beneath the mist that shrouded his face, something about her words felt wrong, too neat, too convenient, as if she were reading from a script that had been written to obscure the truth rather than reveal it.
Ayame took the initiative, stepping forward with her characteristic directness, her voice flat and cutting, "You know a little too much, they would have covered it up."
It was a statement that was more of a question, the kind of question that was Ayame's way of interrogating people, direct and brief, leaving no room for evasion, her eyes fixed on Celeste with an intensity that could have cut glass.
Celeste nodded, her expression unchanged, her voice still carrying that same hollow quality, "I am the magistrate, a handful of governors and people of relatively high standing in the kingdom of Vex that govern outside the capital know such information, it is part of our duty, to know the fate of those who came before us."
Lucid tilted his head, studying her with renewed interest, "Do you know the House of Valerius, their young master?"
Celeste looked at him briefly, recognition flickering in her dead eyes, a spark of something that might have been memory, "Yes, I believe the governor of Tyriana stationed at the border where Materna is at the continent of Ashten, he is a man of considerable influence, though his family's reputation has been... complicated in recent years."
Lucid was surprised she knew, the information settling into him like a puzzle piece that he had not expected to find, he filed it away in the back of his mind, a thread to pull on later when he had more time to think.
Alice's voice echoed in his mind, carrying a note of caution, "She knows more than she is letting on, Lucid, be careful, she is not just a broken woman, she is a survivor, and survivors always have their own agendas."