The Vacant Throne: The Legend Of Kairu Vol 3 (40 page)

“
You’re ready for all
that responsibility, my Liege?” I asked with a smirk. “Last I saw
you, you seemed a little nervous.”

“
Still am,” he
smiled. “But I’ve got you to make me look good,
Advisor.”

I laughed. “Figured out how to be king
already?”

He shrugged. “We’ll
see. What is your news?”

I removed the notes from my armour.
“During the mission, I had suspected Desroche was building a new
Order of Magic. I confirmed that something was going on but can’t
say what his death means for this new group.”

“
Most likely continue
his work in some capacity,” King Markus pitched.

I nodded. “Could be.
These notes are Desroche’s last orders to be sent out to his spies.
Everyone is in codename, but it could give us an advantage in
tracking them down over time.”

King Markus took the notes and studied
them quickly. “I feel bad for the Mage he code named ‘Sweet
Cans’.”

“
Don’t we all,” I
said.

He handed the notes to Lord Kyle for
further study. “Seems our list of tasks to get the kingdom back in
shape just gets longer. But for now, let’s head back to Thurlborn
Peak. We have fallen men and women to honour and a victory to
celebrate.”

“
I’m going to need a
little time to take care of some loose ends first,” I said.
“Consider it the start of my Advisory duties.”

“
Very well,” he said.
“You know where home is.”

He turned around to head back to the
army and I had to chuckle at what he said. I hadn’t known where
home was since the Tower’s destruction. Would Thurlborn Peak
finally be a home or just another place I happened to sleep at that
week?

I searched for my friends but they had
already disappeared with the medics into the crowd. The only one
that remained was Donkor and he was debriefing the Nesqian soldiers
despite his injuries. I hurried over to him and General Kobo smiled
slightly at the sight of me.

“
Good to see you’re
still alive,” he said. “My condolences on your lady
friend.”

“
Thank you, General,”
I replied. “It’s good to see you are alive as well.”

“
What’s next for
you?” he asked. “Can I trust that you’ll be in Nesqa
soon?”

“
Most likely in an
official capacity,” I answered. “The king has made me his official
advisor.”

“
Good,” the general
said pleasantly. “We don’t have to invade Balendar then. Your king
seems a bit lost when it comes to things.”

“
It’s not easy being
thrust into things so young,” I responded.

“
That’s how you know
a boy is a man though,” General Kobo replied. “You are only twenty
cycles and I would trust you as king over him. And you know my
feelings about Mages.”

“
Give him a chance,”
I said. “He’ll surprise you.”

“
I hope so,” he said,
extending his hand. “If it ever comes to a battle between our two
provinces, I hope to not see you out on the
battlefield.”

I took his hand. “It
won’t ever come to that, General.”

He nodded. “Advisor.” He turned to
Donkor. “See you back at the outpost...Ambassador.”

Donkor smirked at the title before
looking sadly at me. “I will be fine,” I assured him.

“
No, you will not,”
he said. “How could you? It was only starting.”

“
We both knew what
was going to happen when we climbed that mountain,” I
replied.

He shook his head. “When you both went
up, I thought for sure you would both come back down.”

The feeling of
longing was starting to gnaw at me. “Sometimes life doesn’t work
that way. We were both prepared and, yeah, it is going to hurt, but
one day I will move on and find another. You need not worry about
me.”

“
I always worry about
my friends,” Donkor said. “But I won’t push it. Come find me if you
want to go bandit hunting though. You know Kobo always has
something going on.”

I smiled. “Deal. Safe travels back
home. We’ll talk again a lot sooner than last time.”

He smiled. “Good.”

I watched him head
off towards Nesqa before turning my attention back to Ghanlar. I
was already dead tired but I needed to do one more trip up the
mountain. I gathered my strength and started towards the mountain
path.

Markus’ words started jumbling around
my head. We were at the start of a new age. I was now in charge of
improving relations between Mages and normal people while watching
to make sure the seventeen cycle old king grew up to be a real
leader. It was an interesting future considering I started this
adventure sleeping in a forest.

The longing gnawed at me again and I
remembered something else from the start of the adventure. Cathy
had predicted that we would probably end up fighting a dragon. I
scanned the skies and confirmed that there wasn’t a single dragon
in sight. This meant I got to tell her she was wrong about
something. I smiled at how sweet that would be.

Epilogue

The smell of the
charred earth filled the air as I stopped just outside the forest
around Scert’chak. The walk up the mountain had been long and I
seriously considered setting up camp and napping a couple of hours,
but the gnawing feeling in my gut reminded me to push on. When the
feeling suddenly stopped, I waited.

A rustle in the trees behind me drew my
attention but I didn’t turn fast enough as I was tackled to the
ground. “Got you,” Cathy said in her normal voice.

“
You can finally talk
normally again,” I said, happy to see her again.

“
I know!” she said
happily. “Any longer in that high voice and it would have become
permanent.”

“
Are you just going
to keep lying on top of me?” I asked, shifting a bit to get her
armour out of my rib.

“
Don’t act like you
don’t like it,” she said, climbing off me and helping me up. “How
was my acting?”

“
Great, as always,” I
said. “I thought mine was a little stale but we convinced Bill
pretty easily.”

“
Yeah, I’d give you a
C plus,” she said. “If it wasn’t for my brilliance the whole
charade would have fallen through.”

“
Oh, whatever,” I
replied.

“
So does everyone
miss me?” Cathy asked.

“
Lady Middleton will
always be remembered as a hero that sacrificed her life to free the
Evenawks,” I answered. “We did her proud.”

“
Hopefully her soul
will rest peacefully in the Void,” Cathy said.

“
Some good news
though,” I started, “King Markus is making me the Advisor to the
Crown so we can improve Mage relations.”

“
Impressive,” Cathy
said. “Makes hiding me a little more difficult.”

“
That it does, but we
can just change your hair, maybe get you some tribal tattoos,
something to hide that scar,” I said.

“
Oh, watch,” Cathy
smiled. She covered the scar with her hand then removed it. The
scar had disappeared. “Just part of my healing powers. I kept it
there because it was part of the role.”

“
Easy enough,” I
said, impressed.

“
This is going to be
fun,” Cathy said.

I looked at Cathy and
tried to summon my courage to finally say the things I’ve wanted to
say, but it wasn’t going well. I ended up just looking at her weird
enough that she laughed.

“
You look like you’re
going to throw up,” she said.

“
Almost,” I replied.
“I’ve been trying to figure out how to say something.”

“
Usually words work
best,” Cathy said. “Especially in a language I
understand.”

I gave her a look and she smiled and
batted her eyelids. “That doesn’t help.”

“
So you’re going to
draw it instead?” she asked.

“
Ha, ha,” I said
sarcastically.

“
Just say it
already!” she exclaimed.

“
I think...I mean, I
know...that...I, uh, have feelings,” I said. “For you.”

Cathy looked at me
weirdly and I decided the next logical thing for me to do was bash
my head on a tree trunk several times. She took me by surprise when
she placed a hand on my cheek. “Did you just say you have feeling
for me?”

“
Yes,” I
answered.

“
Do you love me?” she
asked.

“
Yes,” I answered
quietly.

She smacked my cheek gently. “What took
you so long to say it?”

“
What?” I
asked.

“
Since I’ve been able
to translate these feelings of mine into human emotions I’ve
realised that I have loved you since we first got stuck together,”
she explained. “I didn’t want to say anything to you because I
didn’t understand it and well, I didn’t want to freak you
out.”

“
That’s why I didn’t
say anything!” I replied. “When I realised what I was feeling it
didn’t feel appropriate to bring it up until after we saved the
world. I didn’t want to confuse you with new emotions.”

“
Hello, girl body
over here,” Cathy said pointing to herself. “I could write books on
new emotions, if you’d like.”

I laughed. “So I
could have said it and I would have been fine?”

“
Definitely,” Cathy
said. “In fact, from now on, just say it all the time.”

I chuckled. “I love you, Cathy.”

She squealed and jumped into my arms
for a hug. “I love you too, Andy.”

“
Your armour’s
crushing me,” I squeaked.

“
Right, sorry,” she
said, backing away.

“
Wait, you forgot
something,” I said, pulling her in for a kiss.

It was our first kiss. Not just with
each other but our first kiss in general and I wouldn’t have
changed anything about it. It didn’t matter that Cathy had
forgotten to close her eyes and we were really just mashing our
lips together. It just felt right. It felt like we were whole
again.

Our lips separated and Cathy sagged as
her knees grew weak. She giggled. “You can do that all the time
too.”

“
I just might have
to,” I said playfully.

She stood on her own two feet and
smiled thoughtfully. “I wonder what other couple stuff we can try
right now.”

“
We’ll worry about
that later,” I said, heading towards Scert’chak. “Right now let’s
play ‘Who is Cathy?’ What do you look like? Where are you from? How
did we meet?”

Cathy followed and looked thoughtful
for a second. “Well I definitely should have brown hair. You know
how you like brown hair.”

I chuckled. “Yes, but
you are currently blond and that didn’t stop me from falling in
love with you.”

“
Still, if I could
look like the way I did in your head, that would be great,” she
said.

“
Okay, what did you
do before we met?” I asked.

“
Demon slayer,” she
answered with a playful smirk.

“
Really?” I
asked.

“
No, think about it,”
she said. “As a young girl my parents were killed by a possessed
Mage so I hunt them down now. My back story writes
itself.”

I laughed. “Needs a
little fine tuning.” I thought about it for a second. “How about
you are an ex-Mage from the Tower that specialised in hunting down
the possessed? With the Tower’s destruction, you still wander and
hunt down ex-Tower Mages that have become possessed and ravage the
countryside. It would explain your lack of past AND explain why you
can glow blue and move faster. It’s just your Demon slayer/Mage
training.”

Cathy nodded. “Alright. That works. You
were out doing something when we bumped into each other and you
helped me with my mission and we ended up falling madly in
love.”

“
Works for me,” I
said.

“
This is going to be
great but...” she started, “why are we going to
Scert’chak?”

“
We need to check up
on and help the Chieftain,” I said. “We can’t leave things a mess
there. After that we will need to go to Szwen and update the
Naos.”

“
So more walking?”
Cathy asked.

“
Unfortunately,” I
said.

“
Lame,” Cathy
whined.

“
Oh, by the way, you
were wrong,” I said.

“
How, may I ask, was
I wrong?” she asked.

“
You said we would
fight a dragon,” I said playfully. “Where’s the dragon?”

She looked at me seriously. “Say I was
wrong one more time and I will show you a dragon.”

I laughed. “Fair enough.”