The Rogue Guardian

Chapter 25: Nuisances and News

A flower in celebration of the fact that I finally have a drawing tablet! ...okay nothing to do with the story but I am very excited about this, so.

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The Laycreek city house was rarely used anymore. Only Luca sometimes checked in on it, he said to make sure it didn't fall too deeply into disrepair. Irina thought he was really just overly sentimental, or perhaps, given her recent discovery, overly passionate. Of course, she too was passionate about restoring the family fortune, but if memories of the old house had stirred Luca into doing something reckless-- such as actual murder-- then of course something had to be done.

Eyeing him across the room, she sincerely hoped he'd taken care of those bloody boots she'd found. If anyone else had found them... well, the family's current situation would be made even worse. Perhaps his new assignment had come at the perfect moment.

"You know you have to make the most of this," she told him, watching as he folded his clothes into a trunk. It was a servant's job, but they'd all grown used to doing such things for themselves.

"I'll be fine," he said quietly.

She folded her arms. She wasn't worried about how he'd be; it was what he'd do. "No, you'll be more than fine. You'll be the best commander on the border, because that's how you make the most of this position."

His expression turned stony. They both knew her words weren't a vote of confidence. "I'll do what I have to."

"If you'd done what you had to sooner..."

"Exactly what would you have had me do?" He snapped.

"As if you haven't had a million choices! You could have gone to Commander Kadence and asked to be trained for strategy--"

"I'm not any good at it. That's you."

"--You could have asked the Sage if he needed a knight-assistant--"

"Which is basically half of Joshua's job, did you really want me to take that away?"

"--You could have asked for this promotion yourself months ago--"

"I didn't want to be pushy!"

"Oh, really. Was it also worry about being pushy that kept you from taking the last job they offered you?"

"It wasn't worthy of the Laycreek house!"

"Neither is this! But you've backed yourself into a corner. They have to do something with you, and since you refuse to do anything with yourself they've decided on this. Think about it, Luca-- all the choices you had, all the chances we told you to take. You could have tried to get closer to the princess, what a connection that would have been! You could have used the connection you already have with the auxiliary captain. You could have asked or trained for a million jobs. You could have gotten married. And yet you've done nothing for our family."

"Gotten married? To whom, exactly? As far as I can recall, no one was so ecstatic about the last time I came anywhere close to the topic."

Her temper flared. "I'm not talking about the Thief, although if you were using your head you would remember I'm not the one who had a problem with that. If you had had any sense, you would have looked into what a marriage with her could do for our family and then the conversation with father would have gone much smoother. But your head is always in the clouds."

"Fine then. What about you? If marriage is so easy so arrange, why haven't you done so? How is this not hypocritical?"

She laughed shortly. "Name one person I could marry, Luca."