Eight Intertwined

161 - Erhardt

Erhardt took a few careful moments to breathe, and the conflict on his face told Olberic that forcing air in and out of his lungs was taking too much concentrated effort. "Sounds like you had a grand old chat," Erhardt muttered. "Did he tell you about the soldiers who burned it to the ground? Tough world, this, for a young lad without a home. When the band of sellswords picked me up, I was grateful for it. And when the boss told me he wanted my help to bring down Hornburg... Well, suffice to say he didn't need to ask twice."

Olberic looked down at their reflections in the water once again. "You wanted revenge."

Erhardt nodded, the motion sloppy and haphazard in all the wrong ways. "Aye. Against the king who did naught as the only home I'd ever known was reduced to ash and rubble," he answered bluntly. He watched the way the water distorted his image for a few seconds, finding any excuse he could to not meet Olberic's gaze. After lifetimes apart, looking at one another felt like treason. "Even at the end, as the flames licked the roof beams of their homes... My friends, my family, still believed the king would save them." 

Olberic's fingers clenched into a fist, and Erhardt's did the same. Even after their time away from one another, they still mirrored each other in ways they could never quite describe or expect. "I swore then and there I'd never forgive King Alfred! That he'd pay for what he'd done... Or not done as it were." Erhardt looked up at the cave wall like he couldn't stand to look at his reflection any longer. "And so I came to Hornburg and became a knight. I served my commanders faithfully, worked my way up in the ranks... But then, you know that story, don't you?" Erhardt didn't say a word of his time with Olberic, of the love they had fostered against all odds, but he didn't need to. They both knew it. Erhardt's story had faced unexpected snags and complications, and every single one of them somehow came down to the final blade that had wound up clashing with his on the day of Hornburg's fall.

"All the while biding your time until that final battle," Olberic finished for him. He had thought many times that if Erhardt was planning on betraying Hornburg all along, then it meant Erhardt had been planning on betraying him too. Olberic knew it to be true, but somehow, the thought was just too miserable for him to face. He had been his best self with Erhardt, and even after so many miserable years, Olberic wanted to believe his partner felt the same way. And yet, there they were, dancing around the truth like the clumsiest pair to ever find a ballroom floor. They would not outrun it forever, but as long as they had an audience, they were desperate to try. 

Erhardt nodded, and the silence between him and Olberic seemed to expand more than either of them thought possible. "Delivered my revenge at the point of my blade even as the king looked into my eyes," Erhardt snorted. There was something like disappointment in his eyes, and Olberic bitterly wondered why it looked so much like his old reflection too. 

Olberic could not breathe a word of that aloud though, so he swallowed down his other thoughts and focused on the matter at hand. "His Majesty was a courageous man," Olberic said instead. If he thought about the king and spoke only of his actions on that final day, then maybe he would be able to keep himself from admitting just how much he had missed the lover who had ruined his life. Olberic knew he would need to address it later, but for the moment, his words fell painfully short of everything he needed them to be. There simply was not enough heart left to find understanding where Olberic was searching for it above all else. 

"He was that," Erhardt agreed, and Olberic held back open surprise at the admission. "Till the last, he never stopped fighting for his people..." Erhardt's attention shifted down to his hands. "And I... With a single blow, I..." Erhardt's fingers closed into fists, but their rage would never be fully expressed as long as he still had flesh to clench in the first place. "I killed him in the name of vengeance! Spilt his blood on the soil of his realm! I thought it would set me free... Free from the anguish, the pain, the despair... But it gave me nothing. No release, no triumph... Only a hollowness; a cold, empty void where my rage once burned."