Heirs to a Nothing Throne

Chapter 23

On the walk back to the palace, Theta finally spoke again. "That was... Well..."

I chuckled. "Terrifying? Dangerous?"

"Well, yes, but... exhilarating, right? It was exciting." She couldn't seem to believe she was saying that. "Now that it's all over, it was a bit fun. No one got hurt."

"We... could have died, you know. I was pretty sure we were going to."

She laughed and put her hands on my shoulders, facing me now. "But we didn't! Stephan, doesn't it feel like that's the first time we've won against something rather than just run away?"

"I... I guess so, yeah," I responded after a bit of thought. Her enthusiasm was infectious. "Even if it wasn't a head-on fight, we outwitted the thing."

"Exactly!" She turned around and began walking again. It was encouraging to see how pleased she was by this victory.

"Even if we had a little help from your friend in the statue."

Curiously, her face soured a little. She replied, "He... just made it a bit easier for us. Or stopped making it hard, at least."

"Does that bother you?"

She ignored the question, but the sadness that had tinged her face remained. "Stephan... in a way... wouldn't it be nice to stay like this?"

"And what does that mean?"

She shook her head. "Nothing, I don't really mean anything by it. With Timore and his chevaliers after us, we obviously can't stay. We've probably lingered too long as it is. But ignoring all of that... it's at least been enjoyable, right?" I considered that as she went on. "Well, it's mostly been... you, to be honest. Eva and Angelique seem content to spend time together and leave us to our own devices. That, at least, I wouldn't mind going on a while longer."

It hadn't been awful, but there had been the obvious fear in the back of my mind through all of it. "But... you know... Jasmine, and them..."

Her eyes looked away from me for a moment. "Well, of course. Jasmine, and Verwarr, and... all the rest. Getting back to her is the main reason you're doing any of this, yeah? As long as she's still alive." I quickly inhaled at hearing my darkest concern said aloud, and she looked at me again. "Oh, I don't... That's not what I mean."

"But you do mean that she might be," I muttered.

She spoke slowly, as if to make sure she chose her words properly. "It's not... you're afraid of it because you know she might be, right?"

I nodded. "But I can't face the idea that she is, Theta. Dead or alive, she's still too important to me to entertain the thought. I wouldn't... I don't know what I'd be working towards."

"You wouldn't know what you'd be working towards?"

"I don't know..." Talking about it aloud was harder than I realized. "I don't know who or what I'd have to be fighting this hard for."

"There's really no one else you'd fight for?" Theta's usual smile was obviously forced.

I hesitated. "It wouldn't be the same."

"That's not what I'm asking for!" She raised her voice not out of anger, but something else. "We haven't been through enough for me to be worth running and fighting and surviving for?"

"Well..." I was tripping on my words a bit. "Well, of course, of course you mean plenty to me. But you're not... Jasmine, you know? It wouldn't be the same."

"But..." She was quiet again. "But you know that you are, right?"

"What?" I knew what she meant, though.

"I mean, you're not Jasmine, obviously, but... to me, you are. You've been worth the running and fighting, and you made it enjoyable. You've been enough for me, why couldn't it be the other way around?"

I wasn't paying attention to my surroundings anymore. I can't let you.

She sighed and refused to meet my gaze. "No, that's how it should be. It was never my intention to ask you to forget about her. I just hoped that maybe... while we could...before..." She shook her head, looking away from me. Her voice was breaking up a little. "I'm sorry. I'm gonna... I'm gonna keep walking around for a while." She turned and walked off into a side street. I watched her leave, my emotions not yet caught up with the sequence of events, before turning and walking the other direction.