Embers of Sun and Flame: Before We Have It (Fuegoleon x OC)

Chapter 50: How much to hope?

Nozel's mind ran empty as he hurried down the corridors of the Silva estate, sometimes aiding the way, a long stretch of a hallway when no one was in sight, with the aid of his mana, just to get where he was going sooner, despite not yet knowing what he'd say once he got there. And that was the sole reason why he wasn't running. Flying. Rushing. Because he needed time, time that he didn't have, to think about what to say to her.

But it was as if some, yet another, cruel twist of fate that his mind failed to cooperate.

His thoughts swayed, but got nowhere, as if a tide in a lake. A tide with which there was the aching sense of nausea, as it was all... happening again.

A devil, though this time something worse than a devil, had come to take his family away from him. Even if, this time, not quite as directly as before. But still... directly enough.

Directly... enough...

And he was holding the task of needing to protect. Last time it hadn't... quite, been his place, but rather that of his mother, though he still failed to see it, entirely, as such. Because surely, as the first born, the eldest son of House Silva, he should have been able to contribute even back then, when he wasn't quite a man yet.

Back then I ... couldn't do a single thing...

And he wasn't sure if he could do a damn thing now, one that mattered anyhow.

But I need to do something now... I need to succeed... in protecting... this time around...

The battle in Spade had only gone to show him how weak he truly was, as a knight, as a captain... as a man... But it didn't mean that he wouldn't still have had a squad to lead and a country to protect. He still had both. Which meant something for the country. He wasn't sure what entirely, but they couldn't just ship every citizen they had into neighbouring countries, that was for sure.

The battle that would take place, would take place in Clover, in the Royal Capitol. Because that was the target. Everything that it symbolized, everything that it held, and everything it meant. And it was also their strongest fort.

But it didn't mean that it was strong enough to hold what he held most dear.

I need to succeed... this time... he repeated in his mind, when he ran out of time, and stood before a door, as if the final barrier between himself and the future that laid beyond it. A final frontier that he'd need to cross.

And that door... it mocked him. It ridiculed him. And it... made him feel so small... Like he was nothing. Meaningless. Helpless. Worthless. It made him feel every emotion, and no emotion, all at once.

But, no matter what he felt, he still needed to enter, and tell her. He needed to ask her.

So, he took a deep breath, placing his hand onto the handle, and opened the door.

The bedroom before him was silent. Almost cold. As if devoid of some warmth of emotion he couldn't yet quite name. But he didn't need to name it in order to feel it.

His eyes scanned through the room, as he closed the door, as if in a dream, and saw her standing in front of the window, just looking outside. It was, as if, she was standing before a stage, hoping that what she was seeing was simply make-believe, rather than reality, even though it was a mere palace courtyard on the other side.

"Tell me..." she implored him, while looking at him through the reflection of the windowpane. "What is going on outside?"

His eyes averted, because of the sheer gravity of any answer he might have. 'The world's end', 'the end', 'another war'. All of it seemed too... much.