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Chapter 22: Masks and Questions
The cart rolled steadily through the cobbled street, its wooden wheels creaking in rhythm with the Donkey's tired hooves. The port was just barely behind them now, its shouts and hammerings fading into memory, yet the chatter of the people and the cries of laborers dimmed in the silence that her question had brought. It hung in the air like a heavy curtain, a weight pressing down on him, one he needed to disperse quickly before it bore suspicion.
"From the lands in the Far East," he said, his voice even but carefully measured. It was the same lie he had told Old Matt back on the road to Avalon. The shield he always raised to cloak his origin. To cloak the pain. For the truth was far worse-he really had none. No place. No true beginning. Almost as though he had come from nothing itself.
He exhaled in defeat. He just prayed she wasn't familiar with the cities of the Far East, for he knew nothing of them beyond the vague idea of distance. If she were, then her next questions might cut through him like blades. And if, by misfortune, she too had come from there, then she might press further, asking specifics he could not provide. That was the worst possible scenario. A deadly scenario. One he prayed earnestly against.
He swallowed, the knot in his throat thickening, and breathed out again in panic.
Then she replied.
"Oh... the Far East..." Tiffany's voice laved with a strange mixture of indifference and faint awe, as though she were recalling some distant tale. "What reasons pushed you past such great distance to Avalon? Old Matt said he picked you on the roadside."
So Old Matt had told her something. Xiall's thoughts tumbled over one another in a storm. That was expected, given the old man's closeness with the auburn-haired girl. But what truly plagued him was not that she knew, but how much. How much had Old Matt told her? Everything? Did she already know his supposed origin, and these questions were only snares to test whether his tongue betrayed him?
For once, he felt grateful for his overthinking brain. His paranoia, often a torment, might just keep him alive.
Still, the loop was clear: he had to say exactly what he had said to Old Matt. Consistency was safety. Not bad. Not bad at all. And for now, it seemed she did not know much about the Far East, which meant he had a chance.
"In search of greener pastures," he said, repeating the line as though it were second nature. But even as the words left his lips, he knew Tiffany was not like Old Matt. Despite her detached nature, she was sharper, more observant. He needed to dress the lie better. Wrap it in threads of plausibility.
"The economy of the Far East is on decline," he continued, weaving. "I thought greater luck resided here in the West, so I ventured across the lands. But fortune betrayed me. I was robbed by night marauders of all I carried. They struck me unconscious and left me sprawled upon the road. Thankfully, the old man found me before the carrion did. Lady luck had not fully abandoned me. Old Matt took me along to Avalon, offered me shelter, and promised me work. So here I am. Avalon seemed the only choice left... though it has proved contrary to my expectations."
He stopped. His mind replayed the lie, testing its soundness. Simple. Stupid. Ridiculous. A child could craft a better story. But still, he hoped she bought it.
"Expectations," she said slowly, turning her head just enough to give him a sidelong stare. The word was framed like a statement, yet beneath it he felt the unmistakable edge of a question.
Of course he had answers prepared.
A sudden gust of evening wind cut through the cart, sharp and cold. It tugged at his hair until strands flung into his eyes, blinding him. He pushed them away with clumsy fingers. Across from him, Tiffany too wrestled with the wind, her auburn locks tossing wildly, strands caught on the corners of her lips. The sight distracted him for a moment--too long--and he snapped his gaze back to his own hand, feigning thought.
"The presumed divine proclamation," he began carefully, "and the recurring insurgencies, the persecutions and executions... Old Matt told me they began here. Naturally, I assumed their effects would ripple into the markets. So I believed Avalon would be no more than a desolate, debt-ridden city, hollowed by unrest, its economy plummeting, its streets skeletal. Yet my expectations were shattered the moment I entered."
His words trailed into silence as his eyes lifted. The cart clattered into the heart of the town square, and his answer found its proof in the scene around him.
The square was alive. Stalls pressed tight against one another, canopies of cloth stitched in reds and greens flapping with the wind. The scent of spiced meats drifted heavy, mingling with the earthy tang of fresh bread and crushed herbs. Merchants barked prices, their voices sharp yet laced with desperation. Children darted through gaps in the crowd, their laughter weaving between curses and laughter alike. Blacksmiths beat at iron in distant alleys, the ringing echo carrying above the crowd like church bells.
Yet beneath this apparent life, Xiall noticed something else--the quiet shadows beneath watchful eyes, the quickness with which hands pulled coin purses close, the way a soldier's armor seemed to glitter just at the edge of every corner. The vibrancy was fragile, as though the whole city was trying to shout loud enough to drown out a scream.
"Oh," Tiffany said softly. Her only reply. She turned her gaze back to the road, steering the cart around the circular arc of the square, away from the smoke-blackened skeleton of the vessel that had been set aflame earlier. The riot had ceased. The air still tasted of burnt ash, but the people no longer shouted. Only quiet routines returned to their rhythms.
Xiall seized the chance. Time to turn the tide. Time to know her origin.
"Say, Tiffany," he said, arranging his face into harmless curiosity. "You don't seem from around here. Your hair, your skin... they stand out."
"Landsbrough," she answered plainly. "To the west. Not far. Only a few acres' stretch."
No lifted hands. No hint of pride. No patriotism. The name fell from her lips like ash, a mere word without weight. He stared at her, a thought itching at his mind. Did she have a sad past? How strange it was, to speak of one's homeland as though it were nothing. No light. No warmth. Only indifference.
He wanted to know more. But prying further might birth suspicion. Worse, it might earn him another name. He already carried too many. Best to let it lie.
Still, he had to keep the conversation alive. His mind scrambled for a topic, one certain to win a reply.
"What of the insurgency?" he asked, before he could think better. "Did its effects spread there? I mean... all this. Did they occur there as well?"
The question was idiotic the moment it left his lips. Landsbrough was only a short distance away. Of course the unrest would reach it. He facepalmed inwardly at his own shortsightedness.
"It does," Tiffany said, voice even. "Though with lesser occurrence. Yet when it does, it leaves a deeper mark than here. More intense."
He blinked in surprise. Relief flooded him. Not because of her answer, but because she had answered without ridicule. No sharp jab, no mocking tone. Just an answer. He hadn't expected that.
Perhaps she wasn't as annoying as he presumed.
"I wonder... Reeking man."
His blood boiled instantly. Scratch that. Less annoying? No. She was still annoying as ever. Perhaps even worse.
"What do you make of those vessels?" she asked next, her eyes fixed firmly forward, her voice sharper now. "Who do you deem right or wrong—the bearers, or the knights who hunt them?"
The question jolted him. He hadn't thought about it deeply. Not once.
The vessels—the foretold harbingers of ruin, said to bring devastation upon the world. Yet in truth, they were still harmless, or at least no threat had yet been proven. And the knights, sworn to the greater good, yet driven to zealotry, eradicating any who bore the mark of prophecy.
It was a flawed cycle. A flawed faith. A flawed belief in the absoluteness of the Proclamation. Intense fanaticism clothed as divine duty. That was the true enemy.
Still, he had to answer.
"I don't know," he admitted with a shrug, his tone simple. Then, after a pause, he added, "There is no right and wrong. Only a flawed system, where all perspectives are forced into two sides. Enclosed within a box designed by whoever first proclaimed the prophecy. A box we now revere as divine."
Tiffany's gaze shifted. For once, he caught her looking sidelong at him, her eyes glimmering faintly in the dusk.
"Oh. That was unique. Unexpected, coming from a lecher... but brilliant nonetheless."
His jaw twitched. A compliment buried in insult. Beautifully crafted. Infuriating. Yet her eyes were turned to the sunset now, and in them he saw something beyond indifference. Awe. And maybe, just maybe, sorrow.
She looked beautiful like that.
Too beautiful.
"Tell me, Xiall..."
His heart stopped when she spoke his name. He turned. She was staring directly at him now, her eyes boring into his. For a heartbeat, her indifference melted into raw ferocity, or perhaps curiosity.
"If you happened to be a vessel... a bearer, as they say... what would you do? Would you fight back? Or would you hide?"
The question short-circuited his brain. His lips parted, his tongue dry. And the only answer he could summon was the dumbest of all.
"Huh?"