Maledictus Aether (28 page)

“They would not follow your
father,” he informs me, and I tense. I know this already. “Your
father is not the leader he once was; isolation and exile has
humbled him, if you will, into a man of less stature than they
believed. I do not hold the same respect as you do, and so they
would not let me lead them either; even if I stood as your
emissary.”

“I am afraid,” my words are
choked, my voice breaks, but the truth rings in this statement. I
feel a hand press itself to my left shoulder, yet I cannot feel its
warmth the way I would if he were touching my right. This saddens
me. “I fear what tomorrow will bring, despite all the preparations.
I fear that I will make an irreversible mistake; that I will let
down all those people and those who have died by the hands of the
Fleet. I despise the way I am seen as a god, referred to as such,
and called the Beloved of Aebra. I want… I want to be seen as a
human, not some larger than life being, not an automechanoid. I am
just a man.”

“I understand this is a stressful situation for you,” he
starts gently, and I lift my head slightly just so I can catch
sight of his reflection. His entire attention is focused on me.
“Understand, however, that it is only you who can lead these
people. Only you understand the pain of being an outcast so well,
as you have been surrounded by it since birth; you have seen your
father’s treasury with your own eyes, brought life back to Aeon – a
dying Skyland, no matter what it appeared to seem as – and brought
Tier back to life.

“It was not your father who figured out how to bring
the
Alitis
to the skies again, nor I, nor any
of the other pirates on this ship. You and you alone; you have
given these people hope, where perhaps they can soon live a life
without fear of the Fleet invading and killing us all, believing
what they will. Yes, they refer to you as Aebra’s Beloved, but you
are more than that to them. You are hope itself, a complete
newcomer to the trade who has turned the world we know on its
axis.”

Nodding, I bite back my
sigh.

“It hurts regardless,” I admit, and this time he places his
arm around my shoulders, offering me comfort in this way. It helps,
to a certain degree. “Then,
you
come along and
turn my morals into a jumbled mess, so that I must sift through the
cluster inside me and discard those I cannot withstand any longer.”
Sucking in a breath, I rub the stump of my left leg. “I hate this
kind of stress; it always makes my stumps ache
unbelievably.”

For a while we sit in silence,
I gently rubbing my thigh just before the metal overtakes it, about
halfway down – higher than my right, which begins just above my
knee. Lucian hums to himself a while.

“Perhaps a hot bath would
help,” he suggests after some time, and I click my tongue.

“Oh, wonderful. Sit the man
with four machines strapped to him in a bath of hot water. Nothing
could go wrong,” I scoff, and the man sighs, almost irritated.

“Your aunt has been teaching me many things about automail
parts,” he counters, his tone clipped. “Among them are the
properties, and you should know them as well as I do – as long as
the tanks do not rupture, it is completely safe. Besides, sometimes
it just helps to relax once in a while.”

I roll my eyes, looking away to
my right. He has a point.

“Then it is settled; I will go
draw you one – and no, you do not have a choice.” I mutter a
slightly insulting response to that, and the man leaves me briefly,
disappearing through my wardrobe door to the private bath sitting
in the room to the right.

Defeated, I get to my feet and
ignore the pain in my chest, looking at his back as it disappears
into the semi-darkness of the room beyond my chambers, his
button-down slightly rumpled at his back. Another surprise for me,
just before he fades from my sight; his hair, usually tied in a low
ponytail, is left loose and trails to his shoulder blades. My
fingers twitch at my sides, the memory of the moment where I held
it between them making the heat rise to my face.

I refuse to think about
that.

I follow the man after a
moment, collecting the towel I have left draped over the back of
the chair of my desk on my way. The light is a little dimmer in the
wardrobe, but it eventually brightens considerably as I step
through the threshold of the washroom, where he kneels beside the
claw-footed tub in the centre, drawing the water.

I watch him a moment, his ebony hair spilling over his
shoulder and into his face slightly, his face etched with an
emotion I cannot place. Then, pulling myself from my open staring,
I busy myself by placing the towel on the shelf and lean against
the counter where the washbasin is, watching him. His sleeves are
rolled up to his elbows, faint scars running along his arms. Idly,
I run my fingers along the tattoo I got etched onto my right wrist
before I drew the plans for the
Atlas
, a sword with
wings.

He quietly gets up while the water runs to retrieve a few
objects, so without much else to do I carefully unbutton my
nightshirt, leaving my trousers alone until he at least leaves, but
the tension is almost palpable as I fold the shirt and reach to
place it on the surface of the shelf.

“How did you get those?”

I snap my head in his
direction, eyes wide, to see him standing carefully by the running
water, watching me – or, more specifically, my back. The scars on
my back.

Turning my head around, I look to the shirt held in my
hands and reply.

“I was whipped for my
insubordination,” I remind him, and I swear I hear his breath still
even over the sound of the water. “Nineteen lashes. I suppose you
can call this my greatest shame; this is why I hope to the gods I
never have to inflict this kind of injury on one of my men, ever.
It… it haunts you forever.”

The hand that presses fingers
against a scar near my spine makes me jolt, arching away from the
touch and dropping the shirt in my hands as I let out a small cry
of surprise. My hands are shaking, suspended in front of my chest,
and I clench them into fists as I force my posture to relax. Warm
fingers trail along each of them, from my shoulders to the small of
my back, a map of a story I have never forgotten.

Then, they faintly trace the
outline of the scar just by my arm, the chilled flesh almost
burning at the touch of warmth. He circles the tubes and pipes
entering my skin, the metal plates and rivets… the pieces of me
that are not human.

“Past performances do not
predict future results,” he informs me quietly, and my own breath
stills. “I will not be far; when you leave, I would like to have a
word with you.”

I nod numbly, turning my head a
little to look at his expression and showing him mine, of complete
and utter shock, stunned silence. He smiles warmly at me, a hand
turning my head just a little more so he can kiss my lips, very
briefly, before removing all contact.

I watch him all the way to the
door, trapped in stunned silence. He pauses just before he shuts it
behind him, looking over his shoulder idly as he says one last
thing.

“By the way, Kennedy, never be ashamed of something that
has saved a life.”

Without my say-so, the tears
pour down my cheeks the moment the words register, the door
slipping shut quietly and leaving me in a room that suddenly feels
much too large, too oppressing.

When I leave the washroom some
time later, nightclothes on my skin and towel still in my hair as I
rub it dry vigorously, I enter my chambers and find him lying on my
bed with his legs swinging from the side, his hands thrown to
either side of him and his eyes shut. Pausing just inside the room,
I hold the towel immobile on my head a moment, blinking at the
sight.

He looks exhausted, really. His hair is splayed around his
head, his nightshirt unbuttoned to his solar plexus and the left
shoulder slipping off, exposing a part of his collarbone. There are
more scars here, faint and barely perceptible, and as I stare and
examine him, Lucian speaks, never lifting his head or looking at
me. Keeping his eyes closed.

“There is something to be said
about people – or their souls, rather,” he speaks up, and my
expression shifts to one of confusion, lowering the towel to my
neck and holding it by the ends as I watch him. I feel droplets of
water trickle down my skin. “I find them really beautiful; it has
gone through so much, and yet it keeps fighting anyways. Even with
all the scars accumulated over the course of time, it keeps on
trying; I have seen many of these, all of them equally
breath-taking.

“I suppose you could say that I
am in love with the beauty within souls,” he continues, and a warm
smile graces his lips; it is so infectious that my lips mirror the
gesture, a small breath leaving my lips and my shoulders relaxing.
“They are all so flawed, and yet at the same time they are perfect.
Sometimes it is overwhelming, and no two are exactly similar either
so I never have the same experience twice. None have ever stood out
to me, though.”

His eyes open, finding me with ease and holding my gaze
captive as I continue to stand just by my wardrobe, watching him
with the lamp’s light playing across his features, the moon and the
stars adding to the painting in front of me. Lucian, like this,
makes me think of fallen angels and secret, forbidden desires
between humans and those Nephilim during Biblical days. My smile
melts away.

“Then I met you,” he says quietly, and my eyebrows
skyrocket. “I have seen all kinds of souls, none as brutally honest
as you. I daresay yours is the most stunning I have ever come
across; you are truly unique, in my experience at the very least. I
could not help
but
take a liking to you.”

For a moment we stare at
one-another, the relative warmth of the evening carrying with it
the sounds of the engines, so far away to my ears at the moment,
and voices speaking quietly. All of that is distant, almost in
another world, and my legs finally move, carrying me over to the
bed he lies on and sitting on its edge, never looking away from
him.

“You have been trying,” I muse,
and he shakes his head, using his elbows to push himself up into a
sitting position while never breaking that gaze.

“I never had to.”

Then, sitting up properly, he
settles comfortably beside me, reaching a hand to tip my head up a
little so I can’t escape his gaze.

“I want you to know this,
Kennedy; know that you do not have to do anything tomorrow, for
anyone but yourself,” he informs me. “Think back a little. Why is
it you sought to embark on this mission in the first place? What
pushed you to strive for that goal, the goal most called
irrational?”

I worry my lower lip as I think that through, frowning as
my eyes turn away from his unwavering gaze, that warm smile that
distracts me from my thoughts. His fingers, or rather the knuckles
of his index finger, never leave my chin, holding it up a little,
while I think.

“I… I wanted the truth,” I
admit after a moment, my words coming slowly. Why… did I embark on
this journey?

I do not quite know it
myself.

“I sought to change things, I suppose; to step away from
the set path envisioned by the Fleet, where I would forever be
trapped as an engineer. Do not misunderstand, I love what I do and
I am very at ease working with machines,” I add, licking my lips.
My eyes remain locked on the wall sconce. “However, my love for the
skies is too vast. I have dreamt of being a captain of my very own
ship, veering from the path others have chosen for me. I wanted to
have a say for my fate, I suppose; to right the wrongs done to the
Skylanders, my father, and myself. Now that I think about it, my
reasons have always been selfish.”

Once my words trickle to a stop
I look to my companion, his eyes never having left my face, and I
offer him a small smile to return his own.

“I adore feeling the wind on my face and the biting chill
of the mornings, the hot sun beating down on us as an executioner.
The work done throughout, sweat sticking to me as I work and making
my blood sing in my veins at last. I feel alive,” I breathe, the
very thought of the things that make me love what I do as much as I
do sending a shiver up my spine. “Sitting to the first reaches of
dawn tinkering away at machines, creating life with metal parts and
creating mysterious wonder. The smell of oil and Aether. The stars
in the sky, the moon… how close I feel to the celestial body, to
the heavens, and to the gods.”

Lucian laughs lightly, his hand
moving to brush back a lock of pale hair that has fallen into my
eye.

“I can hear it in your voice,” he tells me, a wry smile
gracing his lips. I blink at him. “You have a passion for what you
do, and you do this because it is what you love and you love doing
it.
Love, and act as you
may.
”

“Augustine, right?” I question,
and he nods once.

“I have seen what you can do,” he continues, still brushing
my fringe from my forehead, “and you need not worry. You can do
this, and I would wager my life on that claim; there is no one else
in the world I would stake my life for, but I know that with you it
is not lost. Have faith.”

I nod after a moment, making
him smile brightly at me and pull me towards him for an embrace;
one I return without much hesitation.

“By the way,” he whispers, his
voice very near my ear, and I tense up at the close proximity. His
hands on my back press reassuringly, and after a moment I will
myself to relax once more, “those scars on your back, and even the
ones on your limbs, I actually like them.”