Chapter 4: Goes Unpunished

I.

Liz’s feet throbbed, and her back hurt. She wanted to sit down under the gate’s arch, but she couldn’t afford the blow to her image. Any manner of gossip made her life more difficult. You couldn’t be found slacking in the presence of either lord or lady. She made her discontent known to everyone a frown. A frown that was hard to notice, given her usual demeanor.

Her gaze bounced from the shrouded path of the forest, to the soldiers performing the ‘drills’. They dropped their weapons, laughing as if the training itself was a formality. For all her time at the Verconis manor, she hadn’t seen them perform drills once. Apparently it’s because the Divine Chrysalis is supposedly protected by Serya herself, whatever that meant. According to the followers of the faith, it’s a ‘blessing’ so powerful that it wards off even violence. If a ‘blessing’ that powerful existed, then there would be no need for military drills. The revered dragon goddess could smite any and all foes that dared to bare their fangs at the isle of Serya. Wishful thinking on the part of the worshippers.

In all the years Liz spent wallowing in the muck of the lower ring, she learned a single truth: ‘if something was too good to be true, it probably was’. Even when she was chosen for this job, she couldn’t believe it. She looked for any justification not to take it. It took more than just her walking into the manor and getting her uniform for her to believe she finally got the job. One evening, after a month of nonstop work, she finally woke from her denial.

“This is real,” Liz said to herself, folding laundry in the summer sun. She wasn’t living alone in the lower ring anymore. She wasn’t taking care of her mother, or being harassed by the neighbors. Of course, she couldn’t get too excited. One mistake meant she was being shipped back to where she started. A blossoming friendship with Nico made that even harder. If it ever crossed his mind to complain to anyone about her, she was gone. Nico wouldn’t do that, as far as she knew. Yet, the thought persisted in the back of her mind, even in someone she thought she could trust.

Liz continued watching the drills, doubt sprouting in her heart. She’s never known the blessings of the Divine Chrysalis. No one ever answered her prayers. Not when her mother passed away, not when her father had gone missing. If something needed doing, you got up to do it yourself.

“Men, posture.” Ezia instructed, arms behind her back. “Now, return to formation. We’ll start again from the top.”

The drills continued unabated. One soldier’s motion looked less like stabbing, and more like flailing. Ezia sighed, grasping the spear’s shaft and straightening his arms out. She lightly tapped his feet into position. Afterward, she stepped away. He followed through with the motion. Ezia nodded with a satisfied smile.

Liz cupped a hand over her mouth to hide her laughter. She met the Pathfinder woman’s eyes, who grinned back. Liz failed. She sighed, leaning against the archway.

Nico still hadn’t come back. The twin moons continued their climb to the center of the sky. Midnight fast approached. It’s been more than an hour. She clutched the hem of her black robe.

“You alright?”

Liz pivoted toward the new voice. It was the Pathfinder. She was a guest in the manor, due the proper respect.

“Yes, Lady Alexandria? How may I help you?”

The forced formality earned Alexandria’s frown.

“You heard me earlier, didn’t you?” She waved a hand. “Just Alex is fine.”

“Then, Lady Alex.”

“Fine.” Alex clicked her tongue. “So, what’s bothering you?”

“Nothing you need to be concerned with,” Liz said, turning her attention back to the forest path.

“‘Need’, yeah, probably not.” Alex walked forward, leaning against the archway opposite of Liz. “But it’s more that I ‘want’ to know.”

According to Liz’s father, Pathfinder’s were always a nosy bunch. They had a habit of forcing themselves into situations they didn’t need to be in for the sake of their livelihood. Money was money at the end of the day. It’s a shame for Alex that Liz couldn’t give hers freely.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a ‘need’ or a ‘want’, the price doesn’t change, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t.” Alex closed her eyes. “But it’s hard to beat free, isn’t it?”

“What?” Liz narrowed her eyes.

“Listen, I’m bored and the princess over there has things under control.” Alex sighed. “And I saw you over here just standing.”

The Pathfinder just wanted to talk. Liz tilted her head.

“What?” Alex crossed her arms. “Is it that hard to believe?”

“No, I suppose not.” It caught Liz off guard. She was under the impression Alex wanted to pry for the sake of a job. It’s the price she paid for keeping her guard up. Regardless, it wasn’t a compelling argument for her to drop hers.

“But, if you don’t want to share, that’s fine too.”

“Giving up already?”

“I can’t make you do something you don’t want to do.” Alex shrugged.

“You’re being a bit too considerate for a Pathfinder, Lady Alex.” Liz smirked. “Shouldn’t you be more forward?”

“Oh, you know a Pathfinder?” Alex rested her hands behind her head. “I didn’t expect people up here to even know what we did.”

“You’ll find rumors travel faster than any airship.”

“That’s true, but you’re speaking from personal experience, aren’t you?.”

“Nothing gets by you, does it?” Liz frowned, the memory of her father still fresh. “Yes, I knew a Pathfinder growing up.”

“So, you know this kind of work is a bit out of our wheel house.” Alex jerked her thumb at the floundering soldiers.

“Men, form up!” Ezia pinched the bridge of her nose. It seemed like the lady of the house was at her wit’s end. Liz offered her sympathy with a small nod of the head.

“You say ‘work’, but you’re over here talking to me.”

“Well, not entirely.” Alex smiled. “Getting to know who you’re working with is part of the job too.”

Alex is weird. Liz’s dad didn’t go out of his way to befriend anyone he didn’t have to. Then again, he was getting up there in years. He worked a job that many couldn’t, and those that did either died young or went missing. Alex didn’t seem like she had anyone waiting for her. She could do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. A thought that spurred Liz to ask a question that might get her in trouble.

“Do you have anyone waiting for you back home?”

Alex frowned. “Don’t got one.”

Liz clicked her tongue. She shouldn’t have asked. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” Alex said. “I’m an open book. You have a question, ask it.”

“Are questions free?”

“You want me to charge you?”

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

What did she mean? She shook her head. The conversation distracted her from her concern. Nico could come back at any moment, and she wanted to be ready. She averted her eyes from Alex, and looked back to the forest trail. The partially faded trail.

Liz tilted her head. When did that happen? It was masked by the shadows of the forest, true, but it wasn’t obscured by a veil of morning mist. Wispy, white tendrils protruded outward. They were small, thin, like the needles on a pine tree. They writhed along the ground; feeling, touching.

“What is that?” Liz pointed forward.

“A mistswell.”

“What?”

“I’ll go check it out.” Alex pulled herself off of the door’s arch. “You stay here.”

“W-wait!”

“What is it?” Alex stopped midstride.

“Lord Nico stepped into those woods a little under an hour ago,” Liz said, gazing off into the misty forest corridor. She mumbled an apology for Nico’s sake. Nico was hiding something from her, but with his safety in question - there was no secret worth keeping if something had happened to him. “He might be in there.”

“Well, shit.” Alex clicked her tongue. “What was he doing? Do you know where he went?”

“He left to go eat dinner alone,” Liz said. “But, I feel like he was hiding something from me.”

“Is something wrong, Lady Alex, Lizbeth?” Ezia interjected. She stood tall, a hand at her side.

“Someone named Nico went out into the woods.” Alex looked down the obscured forest path. “I’m going in after them.”

“What?” Liz balked at the suggestion. “Alone? You should take the guards with you too. Lady Ezia as well.”

“Then who protects the manor? Or you?”

“That would be you, Lady Alex.” Ezia walked under the gate, a hand resting on her sword's hilt. “I’ll fetch my brother.”

“No, seriously. This is why I’m here.” Alex pinched the bridge of her nose. “You guys don’t know mistswells like I do. Actually, question, are mistswells common up here in Serya?”

Liz thought back to her time in the lower ring. She had heard the term mistsswell before. Her father used it when describing certain phenomena. There were certain environments they happened in. From what Liz recalled, they were like a ‘leak’ or a ‘spring’ from this world to the ‘Sea’. They looked different to artisans than they did to normal people. While Liz saw a rolling mist or fog, Alex and Ezia saw something completely different.

Something she couldn’t hope to understand. Again, when Nico needed her most, she couldn’t do anything. Liz bit her lip and shook her head. She cursed her weakness.

“But, Nico is my responsibility.” Liz protested.

“Normally, yeah, but that ain’t normal, now is it?”

“But--”

“Hey.” Alex rested a hand on Liz’s shoulder. “Come on. I’m going to get him back, so just be here for him when I do.”

Liz clicked her tongue. There was nothing she could do. She could fight, fuss, and complain as much as she wanted. It wouldn’t bring him home safely. With a heavy heart, Liz stepped back. “May Serya guide your wings.”

“Good luck to you too.”

Alex marched toward encroaching fog.

“Lady Alex--” Ezia didn’t have time to protest.

“Fire me when I get back!” The Pathfinder yelled.

“Ah.” Ezia clicked her tongue. “You don’t command me, Lady Alex!”

Ezia raced off toward Alex as their forms slowly vanished in the plume of white. Liz clasped her hands together in prayer. She closed her eyes, fervently praying to not only Serya, but to anyone who happened to be listening.

“Please, bring Nico home safely.”

The earnest wish rippled out like a stone cast into the water.

II.

It was a job no one asked him to do. No one asked him to look after a child. He chose to do it. There was something off about her - he knew that. Nico only perceived her with his right eye. He had never gazed at her form with his left. It felt like if he did, the happy ‘dream’ would end. There was a mystery to the child that he denied. Over and over again, he denied it. The questions came to mind - questions that he had asked, but never received an answer for.

“I’m sorry,” Nico apologized to the open night air.

He stepped down the stairs, one step at a time.

The food must have gotten cold by now, he thought.

It didn’t matter. The person who was going to eat it wasn’t here anymore. He could eat it, but he wasn’t hungry. The weight in his chest that spurred him to run, to find the girl, was gone. Only a void remained. An emptiness that couldn’t be filled by food or anything else. Nico walked as if adrift in a dream. A passenger in his own body. One step after another, his eyes never leaving the ground.

Two weeks ago that girl came into his life. She had roamed the forest, scampering along the ground like a rabbit. He had been honing his ‘senses’, getting used to the eye when they happened upon each other. When she first set eyes on Nico, she had a big, goofy grin on her face. It was like he was the first person she’s seen in forever. Nico couldn’t forget her face, even if he tried. Despite her unkempt hair and frail body, she found a reason to smile.

Nico didn’t understand why he wanted to help her. There were others more qualified for the job. But, that feeling he had - that strange feeling that if someone knew about her, something bad would happen. He wasn’t sure if it was his ‘eye’ telling him that, or just instinct. Regardless, it didn’t matter. No reason to worry anymore.

The girl was gone.

She had thrown herself from the back of the shrine.

No one survived that fall. Even if she weren’t human, it didn’t matter. It was certain death from that height.

The fog caressed Nico’s arm.

“Are you sure about that?”

A voice echoed in his mind. It was distant, faint, but familiar.

Nico sniffed. The pungent scent of alcohol lingered in the air.

He looked over his shoulder.

Nothing there except his own silhouette in the rolling fog.

He thought back to when he was a child, playing inside of the abandoned shrine - the entrance to the back balcony was covered with wood. It was closed off years ago. Even with nature taking its toll, a little girl shouldn’t have been able to rip it open. Not a girl of her size.

Each step Nico took, the fog thickened.

His thoughts screeched to a halt.

The thickening fog carried with it a faint ripple. A singular rain drop hitting the surface of the water. One, two, then the sound of rainfall.

“What is that?” He mumbled.

You’re still a worrywart, even after all these years.

The familiar voice again. The fermented scent strengthened with the thickness of the fog. Where had he heard it before? The question forced a migraine. He wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol in the air or his eye being at fault.

“W-who are you?” Nico pivoted on the steps. His gaze went left and right. The shrine gradually vanished behind the growing wall of fog. Nico’s heavy breaths carried a thin mist that joined with the weightless mass.

“You don’t remember me?”

Nico’s eye widened.

“No, I don’t!” Nico yelled in defiance. “What do you want with me? Wait, are you the one who killed that girl?”

“What a baseless accusation.”

“Baseless?” Nico gritted his teeth. Anger anchored his heart against his growing anxiety. “Who else was it, then?”

“The child.”

“What do you mean the child…?”

“Think for a moment, and the answer will come to you.”

What did the spirit mean? Nico narrowed his eyes.

Then, it hit him.

He made a mistake.

She looked human. Yes, that much was true.

Nico reached out to the murky trail that hovered just a foot away from him. He pinched the blackness between his fingers. It thinned, then dissipated into thin air like ink in water. Normal people didn’t leave trails like this. Liz, Thaleo, the other servants - every time they spoke, moved their hands, their feet, anything - it left a ripple.

The girl didn’t leave ripples. Even the strange voice, the fog, it made ripples. When she spoke, when she moved, there was no ripple, no wave. Just a trail of inky black. What that meant, Nico wasn’t entirely sure. He lacked knowledge in this specific field. A problem he had hoped to rectify in the future.

“She wasn’t human after all.” Nico said it more to himself than the strange fog.

“Precisely.”

“W-what else do you know? You watched what happened, didn’t you? Why didn’t you stop her?”

“Because you weren’t around.”

“Because I wasn’t around? What are you-”

Nico stepped back.

His heel slid against the stairs.

He lost his footing. He spun his arms, trying to find balance.

He tried to stop his fall. Yet, he fell.

Nico closed his eyes.

However, he never hit the ground. A familiar gust of wind thrust him forward. He flailed his arms a second time. Nico didn’t fall.

“You’re welcome.”

“That was you?” Nico mumbled. The first gust that stopped him from meeting the girl’s fate. This spirit, or whatever she was, saved him. If she saved him, she probably could have saved the girl. “You could have saved her!”

“You’re no good at this ‘listening’ thing, are you?”

“What do you-”

“You weren’t here, so I couldn’t. You’re here now, so I could, but what’s done is done. The lost one isn’t here anymore.”

“Lost one?” Nico mumbled. “What do you mean?”

“You like saying that, don’t you?” An audible sigh.“It’s what that poor child was. A lost one.”

A term he wasn’t familiar with. Nico sighed, placing a hand on his head.

A lost one. Regardless of what that meant, she hardly ate in the time that he had been hiding her. The child became less animated even after he tried bringing her food. Tonight wasn’t the first attempt, it was just another in a long line of successive failures. Someone going that long without food or drink would’ve died. He had questioned what she was ever since the first day he met her. The strange, disembodied spirit answered her. A ‘lost one’. If she was human, that fall killed her without question. If she wasn’t, however, that meant something else.

“She might be out there,” Nico said, scratching the back of his head.

“Likely.”

“Then I have to go look for her.”

“I’d advise against that, lest you end up dead or worse.”

“If she wanted me dead, she had two weeks to do it.” Nico tried staring back into the eyes of whatever was speaking. “Where are you?”

“Everywhere the fog touches.”

“Who are you?”

“The eidolon that once dwelled within this shrine.”

An eidolon. A term he actually knew, thanks to Necrimas’ teachings. An eidolon was a being from the Sea. Not a body of water from the Underworld, but the ‘Sea’ in which all existence dwells. It’s why everything leaves a ripple. It’s why moving with his ‘eye’ out caused him so much strain. If you’re not aware of ‘the Sea’, you don’t interact with it, you move around as if nothing is going on. If you are, then walking might as well be swimming.

“An eidolon?” Nico mumbled. “So, you’re not a spirit?”

“I’m not dead, so no.”

“You’re just splitting hairs now, spirit.”

“At least call me by name.” The voice sounded exasperated.

“What is your name?” Nico sighed, finding a seat on the stairs.

“I was once called Rinzai of the Bountiful Harvest.”

Harvest. The name definitely wasn’t a coincidence. It explains the scent of ale. Maybe the eidolon housed here had something to do with the isle’s name and past. Nico frowned. More questions that needed answered. He didn’t have time to question her, considering he had a ‘lost one’ to find. He rested a hand on his head as he turned down the steps.

The world swerved at his feet.

“Man.” Nico clutched his head. “I’m happy that she might not be gone, but this is… too much.”

He fell forward.

Nico wondered if a gust of wind would divert his fall. If Rinzai already did it twice, a third time shouldn’t be a problem. If she is an old eidolon, that shouldn’t be a problem for her. Nature may as well be at her beck and call. As he fell, he closed his eyes. He wasn’t hitting the ground. He already knew that.

No wind came.

Instead, it was a gentle embrace.

“You are a handful, Nicodyne Verconis.” Her voice was as warm as her touch.

Nico’s vision blurred as he struggled to stay awake. He turned to get a look at the spirit he apparently knew. What he saw was a pair of vibrant, yellow eyes staring back. As he lost vision, he heard something. A distinct noise that he once heard playing with his cousins in the field behind his uncle’s place.

The distinct hiss of a snake.