3rd
정류장
[궁수]
➶
“Stop.”
Claire skidded to a halt and turned. He was only mildly surprised to see Wtorek Csilla standing behind him. Surprised because he’d been traversing the highest roofs of the Baobab Tree District for about half an hour now and she didn’t have the ability to do it the way he did. Mildly because he’d always known her to be the type that was way too nosey.
“Where are you going?”
Claire shrugged. “Haven’t decided yet.”
“You’re not the type to wander around aimlessly.”
“But, I do aimfully wander,” Claire corrected.
“What’s your aim?”
“Didn’t you get the message?”
“What message?”
“The one on TV,” Claire said. He clapped his hands once, twice, once, once, twice, long, short. The claps echoed loud across the silent rooftops. He finished with one loud resounding clap.
Csilla frowned at him.
“I guess the newscast was on past your curfew?” Claire shrugged. “Speaking of curfews, do your parents know that you’re here?”
“Don’t patronize me.”
Claire raised his hands. “I’m not. You always jump to conclusions—”
Suddenly a glowing dark orange fist-sized object came hurtling at him from nowhere. Before it connected with his head, a shadow dropped down from nowhere followed by a loud clang. The object that had been flying at him flew off in a different direction while the object that had changed its trajectory—a long metal pole—became bent at its middle.
“Felix!”
Felix Ilseong stood dutifully in front of him poised like he could stop any object that came hurling at Claire next with just his body. Which he couldn’t. Whatever Csilla threw next—whether it be a small pebble again or a boulder—would shoot into and through him and right into Claire himself.
“Please step back, Young Lord,” Felix insisted anyway.
Claire wondered where he’d come from. He’d known Felix was around but the slippery guy always managed to evade detection. He had always been able to tell where Felix was in the shadows, but nowadays—even with years under his belt—Claire was playing a guessing game.
Csilla frowned. “My business isn’t with you. Please get out of the way.”
“You tried to harm the prince of the Seong Clan,” Felix replied, pulling his bandana scarf further up his face. “That is what makes it my problem.”
Csilla squinted. “‘Seong Clan’? You don’t look Sagittarian.”
“So you know what a Sagittarian is,” a voice rang out from the dark. “And here I thought you were merely an innocent girl.”
Shadows dropped down around them. To his left—Mai and Kai flanked by a man and a woman who both had their faces concealed by scarves. To his right—Arjun, alone. And just just behind him—Soha and Eunji.
“My apologies, Young Lord.” Soha dipped her head. “They insisted on following.”
Had they been following him this entire time? Claire figured he was getting rusty or maybe it was just this place. He made to check his wrist for a watch that did not exist.
“Is this some sort of surprise party?” Claire asked. “You know my birthday isn’t until—” He thought on it. “When was my birthday again?”
Csilla frowned and took a step forward. In the blink of an eye she was surrounded by several more shoddily masked men and women—each pointing a makeshift weapon at the girl’s neck. Claire barked out a laugh at the sight of it: a bunch of burly men and women wielding kitchen knives and hammers and other miscellaneous objects against a small girl.
Csilla glared even harder. “What are you laughing at?”
“I mean if you were standing where I’m standing, you’d laugh too,” Claire provided. He lifted his hands. “I don’t really get what’s going on, but it’s not my birthday and… I don’t think I really like the theme of this surprise party. I’m just trying to take a midnight stroll and clear my head after everything that’s happened—”
“Midnight stroll?” Csilla interjected. “A stroll through the Small Services District?”
Claire sighed. “There you go jumping to conclusions again…” He pointed in a circle at those around him. “Actually, everyone here seems like they’re jumping to conclusions. I think we should all go home.” He looked back over his shoulder. “Right, Eunji?”
“We are not leaving this premises,” Mai said, pacing forward and jabbing a finger in Claire’s direction, “until you explain what you know and who you are.” She looked over at Csilla. “The both of you.” She dropped her hand. “Clearly, you both are pulling facades. I care not for the reasons why you are doing it but it ends now.”
Claire didn’t know someone who was already frowning could frown even deeper but Csilla was pulling it off. Her fists were balled now and usually balled fists meant that a punch was next in line.
Claire stopped smiling. “Mai, I’d get your friends away from her if I were you. You’re escalating an already escalated situation.”
“I will do no such thing.” Mai looked between them. “What is your relationship with this girl?”
“Well, right now our relationship is going downhill because, like I said, you’re all jumping to conclusions.”
“Who are you?”
“Aren’t you tired of asking that question?” Claire arched a brow at her.
Kai’s gaze flitted to the girl and then back to him. “I think we should listen to him, Mai…”
“Shut up, Kai.”
“No, I agree,” Arjun muttered. “We’re intruding on something we don’t understand—”
Csilla sighed, her irritation clear as day, and pushed forward past the men around her. A second later and she was being slammed face-first into the ground.
Uh-oh.
A blinding flash of dark orange light engulfed the rooftop. When it faded, the men and women that had been surrounding Csilla were scattered around on the ground groaning. The tiling beneath her feet was cracked in ten different places. Csilla remained standing, her arms, hands, and legs coated in that dark orange light. She bent down and scraped away a fist-sized chunk of cement from the ground. The light from her hand bled onto it as she tossed it up and down.
“Conducting without a conductor again,” Kai whispered, tensing. “The people here—”
“I wouldn’t put her in the same category as ‘the people here’,” Claire said, glancing at Kai. “What did I say about jumping to conclusions—”
One of the men who had been tossed to the side lurched at Csilla quite suddenly but she quickly spun around and caught him with her foot. There was a loud crack and the man was sent flying. Fortunately, two of the other people scattered about had stirred and managed to get up and catch the man before he flew off the rooftop. He didn’t seem in great shape though because he immediately began to cough up blood.
“Lianghai!” Mai shouted in alarm.
Aw, she did have a heart.
Csilla zeroed in on her in an instant. Her gaze flicked to Claire for a moment as if gauging something.
Claire sighed as he suddenly recalled something. “Csilla, don’t—”
But it was too late.
Csilla reeled her hand back and hurled the object in her hands right at Mai.
➶
Beijixing Mai grimaced as she picked herself up off the ground. As she gathered her bearings, she took note of her vassals who were hunched protectively over her. They had all dutifully come to her and Kai’s sides as soon as that Csilla girl had cocked her hand holding that rock back. Kai was rolling around the ground groaning to her right while Arjun was just beginning to pick himself up off his feet.
The wind that had knocked them all to the ground had been speckled with blue light, and the caster of that wind was one of the only two people who had not been knocked down. The caster stood a few meters in front of Mai. The chunk of stone that he had interrupted the trajectory of with that storm of light had flown off somewhere into the night.
The caster—no, the doppelganger. The fake that the generals, peacekeepers, and the Virgoan had been discussing at the bakery.
A steady dripping sound drew Mai away from her thoughts.
Its origin: the ground at the fake’s feet. A steady puddle of red was pooling there.
Its origin: the fake’s hand. Or—what remained of the fake’s hand. It looked more like a crumpled piece of paper that had been dipped in red ink. White bone stuck out from the fleshy mass, and again Mai was reminded of that glass casket.
Had he stopped that rock with his bare hand?
Was he an idiot?
Soha and Felix were at the doppelganger’s side in an instant. Eunho was there as well, being held back by Felix’s protective arm.
“Don’t overreact,” Claire said to them in his clan’s language as he cradled his hand. “Overreacting and jumping to conclusions generally fall in the same boat.”
Even though Mai acknowledged him as a fake, unlike Eunho and his vassals, she couldn’t help but feel alarmed about the damage he’d taken on… in her instead. Taken on why? To hold his saving action over her head? Most likely. Another why-themed question: why had that girl targeted her? And why was that very same girl staring at the fake like a tiger would a boar?
Before Mai could reason any further or even feel something akin to concern, the blood at the fake’s feet began to pulsate a dark sky blue. Then, it rippled and rose up like a snake to the tune of a charmer. The flow of red-blue reversed from the ground to his hand. Crack. Snap. Crack. Every jutting bone and chunk of flesh that had been separated popped back into place as if being sewn together by needle and thread.
Mai had only heard of it from Claire—this regenerative capability that only a select few had. Again, the image of the glass casket seared its way to the front of her mind. It was followed by the memory of a small figure sitting on her father’s throne. The two memories—connected.
How?
Her men whispered around her in confusion, tension, awe—but that reaction was not mirrored by Eunho, Felix, nor Soha. They did however appear disturbed. They knew something.
Claire waved his complete hand and stared at it. “Did you see that?”
“See what?” Csilla returned. “Your hand being obliterated? I could do it again if you’d like.”
“How about you try aiming for the right target next time?” The fake replied. “Or… were you testing something in a really roundabout way?”
“I was testing to see if that would motivate you,” Csilla replied flatly, “to answer my questions.”
“I already did,” the fake sighed. “I had nothing to do with what happened in the Small Services District and right now I’m minding my own business. You know I’m not the type to lie.”
“I heard what you did in the Twin Cities and in Ophiuchus.”
Signum. They weren’t even trying to play the facades they had played at the beach.
“And I heard from down the grapevine that you double abandoned your ‘duties’. So why are you so interested in what I’m doing anyways?” The fake shrugged. “Whatever the answer is, that’s all fine with me, but just like how you’re still stubborn as a mule…” He flicked his hand and the wind offered him a cold updraft.
One of Mai’s vassals gasped. It was Mao. Mai whipped around to find that the steel pipe that her vassal had been wielding had been ripped out from her grasp by the wind. It hovered above the fake spinning in a slow, lazy circle—until it suddenly straightened, its tip pointed in Csilla’s direction.
“… I still hold grudges.”
A loud whine filled the air and the pole split into ten thousand tiny shards.
Claire cocked his hand like a gun. “Bang.”
The wind rushed forward in the girl’s direction, carrying with it all of the tiny sharp needles.
Csilla remained impassive and—just as the storm of metal took her—something bubbled on the surface of her face. It was that dark orange light that soon formed a mask over her eyes, nose, cheeks, everything. The metal pins and needles melted away as they made contact with that mask of light, leaving a thin mist hanging in the air.
The light from her face sank into her skin revealing her unbothered expression directed towards the fake. The fake now had another long metal pole in his hand—one that he’d swiped from another one of Mai’s vassals. He whipped the thing in one big circle and spoke:
“Like I said, I’m not doing anything that you think that I’m doing. I’m just minding my own business.”
“Your own business doing what?” Csilla’s eyes narrowed. “The message you tried to relay with that clapping earlier. I only caught the last part. ‘Root.’ Do what with the root?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” he replied. “And it looks like you haven’t either. Fortunately for us, there’s more than a few choices here and all the time in the world.”
“So you’re not for the syzygy…?”
“I’m not particularly against it either. But like I said, don’t jump to conclusions.”
The fake took a step back. The girl immediately clenched her fist—but stopped short a second after. The fake held the pole as if he was notching an arrow. He pulled back with his left hand as if tauting a bow. Specks of sky blue light began to gather at his hands. The more he pulled, the more the light gathered, grew, expanded outwards.
“It’s a bow?” Kai muttered beside her.
Yes. Mai could see it now. The way the light—vitae—was forming around the fake’s hands resembled a bow and the pole an arrow.
The fake’s target: the sky in the distance—no, it was the glowing white branches that stretched across the sky. As he pulled back the ‘arrow’, the air around them got heavier and heavier, the bow brighter and brighter and more and more solid, and—
Csilla was pale. A moment later she was shouting, “What are you doing?!”
What was he doing?
“Sagittarius!” the girl cried as she leapt at him. “Don’t—”
“Just kidding.” The fake whipped the bow in Csilla’s direction, grinned madly, and released the arrow.
A shrieking sound tore through the air and ground rumbled as the arrow hurtled right towards Csilla—and then through her. Mai barely had time to see the arrow tear through the girl’s stomach and drag her backwards into the night sky before a rain of red fell down on them all. The glass of the buildings around them shattered at the single boom that followed.
Mai wiped a streak of blood from her face only to see the crimson droplet pulsate the same color as Csilla’s vitae. The droplet then shot out in the direction Csilla had been dragged off to, and it was accompanied by scattered streams of blood that also glowed that color.
The fake hopped up high into the air several meters above them, standing on it as if it were the ground itself. He squinted into the distance and said, “Now we’re even…”
The way the fake moved was familiar to Mai, but she was not reminded of Haneul. No, instead she was reminded of—
Abruptly, the fake dropped like a log. Eunho rushed forward and threw out his hand. Sparks of light blue emitted from his palm and an updraft formed beneath the fake.
“Eunji…” Arjun stared at Eunho in disbelief.
Mai’s blood ran cold.
The gust of wind gently set the fake down on the ground, but he fell flat on his back anyways, arms wide spread. The rest of the Seong Clan were at his side in an instant.
Liangshi and her other vassals who had tried to hold Csilla down returned to Mai’s own side. Mai’s gaze focused on the former.
“I’m fine, My Lady,” Liangshi answered the unasked question. “Are you unharmed?”
Arjun was already walking in the Seong Clan’s direction. Mai brushed past her vassals and followed him with Kai following behind her. When she reached the Seong Clan, the fake, and Arjun, the fake was rolled over and coughing heavily. Upon closer inspection, she came to realize he was coughing up blood. The blood was riddled with flower petals.
Felix handed him a small bottle of water. The fake sat up and began to chug it.
“Did you kill her?” Kai asked.
Ugh. He always asked the most senseless and useless questions.
“I don’t think so,” the fake replied nonchalantly, tossing the empty bottle over his shoulders, “but if you want to check feel free to take that hike into the next district to be sure. I think she landed in the Wealth District.”
Felix caught the bottle haphazardly.
Again, the glass casket flashed into Mai’s mind. She turned to her nearest vassal and pulled the kitchen knife from her hands and pointed it at the fake’s throat. Soha and Felix were on her in an instant—Felix, pointing what remained of his metal pipe at her own throat, and Soha, grabbing her wrist. Liangshi, despite his injuries, immediately drew out another kitchen knife and pointed it at Felix’s throat while another one of Mai’s vassals pointed a makeshift wooden spear at Soha’s abdomen.
The fake arched a brow as he rose to a stand. “Always so quick to jump to conclusions.”
“Let us all calm down,” Arjun drew slowly, irritatingly calm. “There is no need for us to create enemies where they do not exist.”
The fake smiled at him as if in approval.
“Who are you?” Mai demanded, staring daggers into the fake’s eyes.
“I already told you,” the fake responded. “I’m Claire, your neighbor.”
Mai gritted her teeth.
Kai spoke now, sounding casual despite his frown, “We just saw you fight with a teenage girl and you were shouting about roots and the syzygy. It’s hard to ignore that.”
The fake shrugged with a nod. “Csilla and I have never gotten along.”
Arjun then asked, “Who else are you besides Claire?”
The fake smiled as if in approval again. “You probably already know the answer to that.” He eyed Mai. “Especially you.”
The atmosphere around him changed and a coldness crept into the air as an ominous heaviness began to weigh down on Mai’s chest. She pulled back her knife.
The glass casket. The boy upon the throne. The manner in which the fake had maneuvered themselves earlier. The color of his vitae.
“Ilseong Jin,” Mai whispered.
The fake stared for a moment before he barked out a short laugh. “Well, that’s one way to put it.” He dipped down into a formal, ceremonial bow, and the vassals pulled back their weapons. “Saint Candidate of Sagittarius and Saint of Arrow and Direction. My life is a shooting star.” He rose, his silhouette starkly accented by the lights from the city behind him. “But you can call me whatever you want.”
West: 진실
1st
정류장
[유성]
➶
“Stop.”
Claire skidded to a halt and turned. He was only mildly surprised to see Yuseong Eunji standing behind him. Surprised, because it was a quarter past one in the morning and they were currently only a few meters away from the gates of Ndoto. Only mildly because he was her brother, after all.
The walls behind him were the ones that had been damaged by the fiasco two nights ago when the merry band of soldiers had arrived. The cement walling had been cracked open like an egg, revealing an iron skeleton inside that stretched into darkness.
He looked around Eunji.
No Soha in sight, but he knew she was around. Just like how he knew Felix was around.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
➶
Eunji knew the person standing in front of her was not her brother. She’d known since she’d first laid eyes on him. It was ironic since, unlike every other person that occupied Ndoto, he seemed most like ‘himself’ but there were differences that were difficult to describe.
This person was kind in a different way than her brother. Claire’s kindness was always calculated but this person’s kindness was nonchalant, unbiased, and without care or thought.
This person was not manipulative like her brother although it didn’t seem this way on the surface. She’d always watched Claire closely, tensely during their clan meetings. Whenever he’d drop a piece of crucial information that would affect multiple clans, he’d step back and watch the ripple effect to see how far it reached. This person on the other hand threw stones without checking to see how the ripples formed as a result.
This person was also blase in a different way than her brother. Their unconcerned and casual attitudes were the same, but Eunji had seen her brother bent over his desk, hands threading through his hair, teeth grinding in his study room in the dark of night. It had all been a mask—unlike this person.
Eunji had almost wanted to believe in the illusion, but if she believed it then what would happen to her real brother? She had feared even entertaining the idea. However, this past night when Mai and Kai had shown up with Arjun and Soha out of the blue at the gates of Ndoto had stirred something cold inside her chest. Mai’s icy gaze full of judgment. And Soha’s painful relief.
The answer that night became clear. What they experienced outside of Ndoto was real. Everything they experienced here in Ndoto was a manifestation of some kind. Not exactly unreal but machinated by someone else. Eunji and the others who had been in Ndoto longer had lost time somehow since they’d gone missing. Eunji supposed some might point their finger at mysticism or some higher power but she knew there was a logical reason for everything. Cause and effect.
“Nowhere in particular yet,” the person in front of her answered. “Is that what you came out all the way here to ask me? Or is it something else?”
“Why… do you look like my brother?” Best to start with a non-confrontational question.
“Maybe because I am your brother?” the person replied with a lax smile. “Where is all this coming from?”
“I know you’re not Claire,” Eunji drew slowly. “At least… I’m pretty sure you’re not. But I know you don’t have any ill-intentions either. I’ve… watched you for a while now, so I know. I heard about your conversation with Mai and Arjun in that mansion.”
“You were peeping?”
Eunji felt her cheeks burn a bit at the accusation. “You’re trying to help us. Give us hints about what’s going on here.” She swallowed. “I really appreciate that.”
The person searched the sky before looking back down at her. He pulled a hand out of his pocket and aimed a mock gun at her. The air around them became still and then—“Bang!”
Before Eunji could even process what was happening, she was being hugged and tackled to the side by Soha. Felix was in front of her as she righted herself. He looked torn but still put his arm in front of her.
“Young lord!” Soha snapped. “What are you doing?!”
“I’m giving you an order,” the person replied, “and I wanted to look you all in the eyes as I gave it.” He held up a finger. “Don’t follow me ever again and mind your own business. When I need you, I’ll come and get you.” He lowered his hand. “Is that clear, Soha, Felix?”
“Yes, my lord,” Felix answered automatically, most likely out of reflex given how he flinched and look back at her afterwards.
Soha’s lips pressed thin.
“No. If you’re asking something from me,” Eunji said, “then it’s only fair that I ask something from you. In the Seong Clan, the first born daughter and son hold the same authority. Claire’s a first prince and I’m a first princess—”
“On paper or just in speaking terms? No offense.”
Eunji felt like she’d been stabbed in the chest. Any doubt that she had about this person being Claire was cleared away instantly. Still, she managed to keep her voice even. “Where is my brother?”
The person framed their face with a hand. “Right here.”
“I’m not an idiot,” Eunji whispered. “I know it’s you. That ‘bang!’ you said just now just gave it away completely…” She paused before she tried with effort, “Aunt Jiji.”
Felix and Soha looked down at her in confusion and then surprise and then realization. Of course they knew what she was trying to imply. Claire had always told them everything.
“Claire thinks he can hide things from me but I’m not daft,” Eunji murmured. “I’ve gotten good at picking up on what he’s trying to hide and connecting the dots from my own research. He was…”—she took in a breath— “hurt really badly on that day and fell into Ophiuchus’s reservoirs. That’s where people who are supposed to become saint candidates are taken. Saint candidates being able to do things normal people can’t, vitae holding memories, the things that happened at the conductor convention…” She looked up. “I know something happened and you died, Jiji. You were never at the clan meetings after I took my conducting exams and Claire always acts a specific way when he’s lost someone. So when Claire fell in… you….”
“Hm…” Jin rocked back on his heels. “Well, this is awkward. I’m out.”
Before Eunji could think of what to say next, Jin swiveled around, stepped up into the air, and disappeared into the opening of the break in the wall. It was such an abrupt move that it took Eunji a second to process it.
“W-We have to go after him,” Eunji stammered to the two as she dashed after him. “We need answers.”
Felix ran ahead of her. “I will get to him first, My Lady.”
“Felix, wait!” Soha snapped, but Felix had already disappeared into the metal jungle.
It was dark inside but enough light seeped down from the branches in the sky to illuminate the space. Iron bars rose up from the ground and criss crossed each other above her head. Outlines of iron cubes stacked up on top of each other, building up endlessly.
Eunji proceeded with caution and with Soha at her side.
“If that truly is Ilseong Jin, Young Lady,” Soha drew quietly, “then we must consider her an adversary.”
“Did Claire consider her an adversary?”
Soha was quiet for a moment. “No, your brother still held her in high regard.”
“But you disagreed…?”
“I did, but I trusted your brother’s judgement,” Soha replied. “At the time it didn’t matter since Jin was dead.”
Eunji spotted a stack of crates that led up to one one of the upper iron bars. She scaled it quickly and got onto the beam. Soha was just behind her. Usually Soha’s face was hidden by an intricately painted mask. She’d started using a bandana here to conceal her face but it had slid off at some point of their ascent, and she hadn’t yet pulled it back. The lines on Soha’s face were more prominent than Eunji had ever recalled seeing before. There were dark circles beneath her eyes as well.
“It was many months, wasn’t it?” Eunji asked. “Since we disappeared?”
Soha looked over at her.
“My mother didn’t do anything to you… did she? Because we disappeared?”
“Your mother was and still is in grief,” Soha replied. “There is no anger left in her just like there were no bodies to grieve over.”
Eunji bit the inside of her lip. “And you, Soha?”
“You three are all I live for,” Soha said. “My purpose is to ensure that you outlive me.”
Reflexively, Eunji grabbed Soha’s hand. She couldn’t think of what to say but she knew her message got across because Soha squeezed her hand back.
A loud bang suddenly resounded above their heads and the entire metal frame around them shook violently. Another loud bang resounded shortly after and then a shout.
“Felix!”
They began to quickly scale the metal framework using the dangling ropes and chains that hung from each bar. Halfway up scaffolding connecting one level of iron bars to the next level began which made it easier to traverse upwards.
On the fifth level, Eunji stopped short. The beam they were standing on was now made of wood not metal. And not just any wood. It looked as if it were a branch of a tree. Upon casting a glance down, she froze. She could see the exact spot where the metal melded into wood. It didn’t make sense. And yet the higher they ascended, the more tree-like the bars became. Some sprouted small branches of their own, others sported blossoming flowers. Despite the lack of sense, still Eunji knew there was logic and meaning behind it.
Soon they reached the top of the half wooden-half metal framework. Above them, a large crack in the ceiling let in slivers of light from outside. Standing directly beneath the brightest sliver were Felix and Jin.
Felix was holding his own arm and wincing. There was some rope in that hand, and he was gripping it as if it were a lifeline.
Had Jin hurt him?
Eunji had not gotten the impression that Jin was out to hurt them at all. All of his combative responses and actions had been warnings. Or… had she been wrong?
“Has anyone told you that you’re clingy?” Jin asked, shaking his ankle and revealing that Felix had managed to get the rope tight around it.
Felix’s grimaced, eyes narrowed, and he pulled on the rope. Eunji had never seen him so full of emotion before. He looked like he was strangling back a shout but all that came out was a quiet, “I’m sorry.”
Jin’s smile fell. “Sorry for what?”
Felix remained silent.
“How can you be sorry for anything when you can’t say what you’re sorry for.” Jin shrugged. “That just means that you’ve got nothing to be sorry for.” He lifted a mockgun, cocked it, and fired.
Wind whipped out like a hurricane, slicing the rope that bound him to Felix in to pieces and sending Felix right off of the wooden beam. He regained balance mid-air and made to land on one of the lower beams, but Jin threw out his hand again, turning the area into a tornado. Felix was thrown off balance and hurled through the air before the wind surged downwards taking him with it.
Soha shouted.
Time slowed.
Eunji’s mind raced.
If only she had a conductor. No—no one was able to use a conductor here. No one besides that Virgoan—at least that was from what she’d heard so far. However, everyone native to Ndoto was able to conduct without a conductor. Just like a saint candidate. An Ndotoan, like a saint candidate. And here Eunji herself was considered an Ndotoan. An immigrant but an Ndotoan.
Ah.
She had overheard Olive had explained it to Claire once before on their cross continent train ride together. He had likened his body to a conductor itself—his heart the conducting core, his muscles and veins and nerves the insulation tubes. Eunji had been fascinated with the concept and had always imagined what it would feel like if she did the same and had even embarrassingly acted the action out on occasion.
Now Eunji did the same as she did then, throwing out her hand, envisioning her heart as the conducting core, her veins and muscles as the insulation tubes, her body as the conductor. Then, she willed for something, anything—
A torrent of air flecked with light burst out from the palm of her hand and swept Felix in an updraft just as he hurtled past her. The two wind fronts meeting turned the tornado around them into a hurricane.
Eunji was nearly knocked off her feet by it but Soha caught her and held her steady. Eunji used her newfound balance to direct the wind to form a protective vacuum around Felix. Once she knew he was safely on the beam across from her, she threw out her other hand in Jin’s direction. Jin did not appear evenly mildly disturbed by the chaotic whipping air that resulted from their wind fronts meeting the but he did stop the air torrent that he’d been sending out.
Eunji stopped as well.
Everything fell quiet.
“Are you all alright?” Soha whispered.
Eunji nodded as did Felix once he steadied himself.
Felix dipped his head at her. “My apologies, My Lady.” He paused. “How—”
“How did you do that?” Soha finished.
“I think…” Eunji murmured, focusing on Jin. “I think we all can do it here.” She bit the inside of her lip. “Easily…”
Jin hummed before he kicked up into the sky through the gaping hole in the ceiling. The sonic boom he left shook the entire framework of wood and metal.
Eunji stumbled for a moment before righting herself. “Take care of Felix, Soha. I’ll go after him.”
Soha grabbed her wrist. “My Lady, I advise against it—”
“That was an order as your princess,” Eunji interjected.
Soha’s grip merely tightened. “I cannot lose the last heir of our clan.” There was a barely audible quiver in her voice.
Eunji felt her words catch in her throat. Then, she thought of Claire and of how the hopes of their clan had all been riding all on his shoulders even though she’d been right beside him, shoulders ready, but too scared to ask if he needed help. It wasn’t like she hadn’t noticed it. But he always seemed fine by himself. At least that was what she had convinced herself.
“You won’t. And I am not the last heir of the Seong Clan.” She held Soha’s gaze. “Trust me.”
Soha froze before she slowly released Eunji’s wrist. “We’ll be behind you.”
Eunji nodded and watched as Soha maneuvered across the beams to Felix. She looked back up at the opening above her, took in a breath, pictured her body as a conductor, and launched herself up into the sky.
The night air was cold and crisp—nostalgic.
Abruptly, Eunji was reminded of the first night she’d gotten her training conductor after her conducting type test ceremony in preparation for the conducting exam. She had been supposed to get her first conducting lesson early the next morning but Claire had snuck her out of their palace the night of. He had taken her up into the sky on his own conductor and instructed her on how to use hers. Her tutors had drilled conducting concepts into her in the months leading up to her type test ceremony so she had confidence in how quickly she could pick it up. However—
—Claire had been a terrible teacher. ‘Do this,’ he said. ‘And then this. And then you need to think like that in order to do that.’ She’d snapped at him at the time for his lack of clarity and he’d snapped at her back. They had gone back and forth for two hours before Eunji finally managed to get a tiny bit of her vitae to spill out from that conductor. The joy and awe of that moment—of being able to produce something otherworldly—remained crystal clear in her mind as did the warm impression left on her shoulder after Clarie gave it a squeeze.
“See?” Claire had said. “Isn’t conducting fun? You’re welcome for showing you before Tutor Luseong Kang-min beats the fun out of it for you. I hated conducting for a long time after that until Aunt Jiji showed me a thing or two. We’re lucky to be born air elementalist, you know?”
“Because we’re more viable for the throne?” Eunji had asked.
“Well, that and because we’re not bound to the ground like other conductors.”
Eunji had huffed. “Isn’t that conceited?”
Claire had merely chuckled. “I… didn’t mean it like that.”
The next morning in the central palace courtyard, her tutor Luseong had praised her on how quickly she had picked up conducting compared to Claire under the watchful eyes of the officials, her mother, their vassals, and Claire himself.
Had Claire been smiling or frowning during those moments? Eunji couldn’t recall.
Eunji snapped out of the memory once she registered Jin standing on the air a few meters above her head. She was taken aback slightly by how casually and effortlessly he was conducting. It barely looked like he was conducting at all.
“You really can conduct without a conductor.” Jin whistled. Without saying anything else, he took off up higher into the sky.
Eunji shot up after him, closing the distance between them in the span of five seconds. She was faster than him, she realized. The next thing she realized was that she was going too fast. Too fast to grab him, too fast to change course, too fast to imagine the pain of collision, too fast to stop collision—
Eunji heard the crack of their bodies colliding with each other before she felt it. Soha and the other combat tutors under her clan had given her many bruises in their training sessions, but nothing had ever been as painful as this. Moving just a finger sent an electric shock up her spine, and the fact her arms and legs were tugged this way and that as if by strings only intensified the pain. The world spun wildly, the wind cut at her face, and her stomach performed flip flops.
Blindly in a panic, despite the pain, she sent out bursts of air from her palm but that only made her spin around harder, faster. It was a stupid idea, but she didn’t have time to think of how stupid it was because she knew that in mere seconds she would be a splatter on the ground. Fear seized her stomach and she bit back a whimper of terror as she flailed out her arms again.
Abruptly, the wails of the winds around her fell silent. The air stilled. Eunji opened her eyes she didn’t remember squeezing shut. The gaping hole at the top of the walls was a few meters below her. At the edge of the opening stood Soha and Felix who were tense with faces wrought with worry. Eunji looked up to find Jin slightly above her, holding her by the scruff of her shirt.
Eunji let out a shaky breath.
In response, Jin swung her back and forth before tossing her in Soha and Felix’s direction. Soha caught her with ease before setting her down.
So he isn’t trying to hurt us, Eunji thought. She side-glanced at Felix. I think…
Jin began his slow descent down onto the ground across the opening. He floated down like a feather, the air around him still. He pointed to Eunij.
“That’s the last heir to the Seong clan. I’d do more due diligence as Seong clan bodyguards if I were you.” He raised his hands. “Let’s cut to the chase so we can stop the chase and avoid anyone else becoming decorative art on the ground.”
“That’s what I was trying to do in the beginning,” Eunji muttered. “So I wanted to know—”
Jin held up a finger. “I saved you so I get to ask the question first.”
“You’re the reason you had to save me in the first place—”
“How are you conducting without a conductor?” he asked.
Eunji frowned at him, thinking. “Shouldn’t everyone in Ndoto be able to?” She wanted to see how much he knew.
Jin shrugged. “I just didn’t expect it from you, so I just need to know which side of the fence you’re on.”
He was testing her too?
Eunji let out a breath. “My body isn’t the way it was in Signum,” she murmured. “Here it’s everything I’ve ever wanted it to be. It feels right and that’s how I know that it’s wrong. This is me but it isn’t. This is the body of an Ndotoan. I don’t understand how it happened, but I do know that an Ndotoan can’t conduct with a conductor but can conduct without a conductor. So by that logic, I should be able to do it too.” She looked back at Soha and Felix. “Everyone here who is an ‘Ndotoan’ should.”
Their eyes widened.
Jin placed a hand to his chin. “Hm… the question is why you’re still you. How long has it been since you think you got here? Maybe it has something to do with Libra’s arrival?”
“Libra?”
Jin turned on his heels and waved. “Anyways, thanks for the answer. See you at home later. Don’t be weird or I won’t catch you next time.”
He took off into the air before Eunji could even shout. She prepared to launch herself after him again but he suddenly stumbled back to the ground in a coughing fit. In the next second he was doubled over on his knees.
Eunji’s heart leapt in her chest and she flew across the divide to Jin’s side as he collapsed on all fours. Blood was dripping from his mouth and with it came stained flower petals. He rolled onto his back as Felix and Soha came behind her.
Jin continued to cough as red began to seep into his shirt from his chest in three areas. Three small circles that gradually grew larger. They looked arrow wounds, bullet holes—
“T-Those wounds…” Felix paled.
Soha knelt down beside Jin and reached for his shirt but Jin reached up and grabbed her wrist. He pushed it aside and unbuttoned his shirt himself. There on his chest three small holes no larger than a cens coin were slowly closing up.
Jin wiped the blood from his mouth, coughed up a couple more flower petals, and rose to a sit once the wounds closed completely. “Damn,” was all he said as he buttoned his shirt.
“What’s wrong with your—the young lord’s—body?” Soha asked, eyes narrowed. “Ilseong Jin?”
Jin tried to stand up but Soha pushed him back down. He relented and let out a long sigh. “Don’t know.”
Soha frowned. “You know something.”
“I know that my favorite nephew is a True Conductor and that True Conductors are like leaky channels,” Jin answered nonchalantly. “I know that leaky channels can’t really handle high water pressure situations and I am that high pressure situation.” He winked and did another finger gun. “Basically, if I turn the nozzle too high, things can go a bit south…” He patted his chest. “But it’ll all work out in the end. It’s not a big deal. Probably.” He looked up. “And here I thought I could bond with Aries about something, but it looks like our situations are different after all…”
“How dare you take the young lord like this,” Felix growled, “and put him in grave danger as a member of the Seong Clan—no, as a citizen of Sagittarius?”
Jin arched a brow. “Didn’t you used to be a quiet and shy kid? What happened?”
Felix gritted his teeth but Soha pushed him gently back.
“That’s not how this works, by the way. When someone becomes a saint candidate, the saint candidate doesn’t ‘take them over.’ The person chosen to become a saint candidate just accepts the knowledge from all their previous predecessors and a little bit of extra stuff from way before your time.”
“Like a cup of tea overflowed with soju,” Soha said.
Jin shrugged. “Sure, if you want to get poetic about it, but that’s actually not the case here.”
“Because you’re not Claire,” Eunji murmured.
Jin stared at her and then chuckled before he conceded, “I’m here because Claire asked me to be here in his place—”
“You spoke with Claire?!” Soha let out a breath. “After he was… injured?”
Jin nodded. “If I wasn’t here, his True Conductor friends would be dead. Claire would’ve long crossed the threshold of life and death.” He paused. “Did he ever tell you about his True Conductor pals or did he keep that bit a secret from even his trusted vassals?”
Soha’s gaze darkened.
“That makes no sense,” Felix interjected. “You say saint candidates are just knowledge but how can knowledge have sentience and speak and take someone’s place?”
“If you think about it, all you are is knowledge and memories too,” Jin replied. “Don’t you have sentience, kiddo?” He paused. “Anyways, again, you’re welcome.”
“If you are in the young lord’s place then switch with him at once!”
“One, that’s not part of the deal. Two, it doesn’t work like that.” Jin waved him off. “Three, it’s not that easy when you’re here.” He pointed at the ground.
Felix bristled. “You—”
Eunji held up a hand and gave Felix an apologetic look. Felix complied and took a step back.
“What do you mean by ‘here’?” she asked.
“Here where the vitae is different. Here where regular people like you can conduct without a conductor. Here where vitae energy levels and states don’t matter—where the laws of physics and biology don’t even matter. Here where the living and the dead shake hands everyday. Here where the threshold of life and death isn’t even a threshold anymore.”
What?
“I can go on if you’d like.”
Living and dead shaking hands? Threshold of life and death…? Claire—the real Claire—flashed through Eunji’s mind.
Eunji pushed the thought aside and didn’t answer. It seemed like Jin was also still trying to figure things out.
“Any other questions?”
Eunji bit the inside of her lip. “Claire asked you to hide it from me, didn’t he?” She looked back at Soha and Felix. “Like he always does.” She met his gaze again. “That’s why you ran. That’s why you’ve been lying.”
“Yes and no. Feels good being the heroic shielder but not the one being shielded though, huh?” Jin grinned for a moment before she nodded. “It wasn’t one of the things that he wrote down in our agreement but it was sort of an implied thing. Gave it a shot and it didn’t work out so no point in trying to crisscross back. Though… keeping a low profile is always the best thing to do in situations like these.”
“So you and Claire made a deal,” Eunji murmured. Her stomach squeezed a bit. She couldn’t manage to ask why. “And your side of the deal involved you… becoming him.”
“More or less, yes.” Jin leaned back a bit. “Your brother is a stickler for details so it was like signing a legally binding contract. Anyways, I was bored at the time so I thought ‘why not?’ and here I am.” He nodded back at the gaping hole in the wall behind Eunji. “You saw how you, Soha, and all the others waltzed your way into Ndoto the other day, right? Whatever made this hole here probably had something to do with it and I was hoping to get a crack at it before your triumphant trio came rolling in—”
“You made a deal with Claire here. So you’re implying,” Felix interjected in a whisper, “that… the young lord—Prince—” He took a moment to recollect himself. “Claire is still alive?”
He’d asked the question Eunji had been too afraid to ask out loud. The day she laid eyes on Jin in Claire’s form in Ndoto, her heart willed for Claire to be alive and her mind would not let her think of any other alternative. But—
Jin finally stood. “That’s something you all have to figure out for yourself.”
Felix frowned. “What?”
Jin shrugged. “Is there an afterlife? Is there such a thing as a soul? Is their karma? Is there justice? Can a teacup with just a drop of tea in it still be considered tea after you drown it in soju? Can everything really be forgiven? Those are the kinds of questions that probably won’t even reveal themselves at the end of the road. Because there’s no definitive you’ve got to define it for yourself and stick to the definition.”
He was about to leave again. Eunji could tell. She had to stop him—like she should’ve stopped him before he went off to Ophiuchus that day. “Let me help you.” This too was something she should’ve said to Claire that day.
Jin paused. “You want to help me or do you want me to help you?”
Eunji stammered, “Let’s help each other.”
Jin arched a brow. “Last time I worked with someone, it didn’t turn out so hot for me.”
“I figured out that I could conduct without a conductor, didn’t I? I bet I can figure out why that’s possible too. There’s something wrong with your body too, right? Because of that ‘True Conductor’ thing that you mentioned. You’re ‘not Claire’ because of that, right? I can… try to figure out why that’s happening—fix it so that exerting yourself when you’re conducting doesn’t do this to you, so that—” So that Claire could come back. She stammered, “And Soha and Felix are great at surveillance and you can cover a lot more ground with them than alone. We have the same goal too—”
“For now until I finish your brother’s checklist.”
“Checklist…?” Eunji shook her head and held out her hand. “You’re Ilseong Jin of the Seong Clan. You’re in a contract with Prince Yuseong Haneul of the Seong Clan. It only makes sense for you to join forces with the princess of the Seong Clan.”
“Does it? You need to brush up on your negotiating skills. Claire really did shelter you, huh?”
Eunji felt her cheeks burn, her heart sink, her lips begin to quiver. “Please.”
Jin stared at her hand for a while before he looked back at Soha and Felix. After a long stretch of silence, he let out a long sigh and took her hand. “Sure. Why the hell not. You are my favorite niece, after all—”
A loud boom suddenly cracked above their heads. A streak of lightning flashed across the sky followed by one drop, two drops, three. Rain. Rain with no clouds.
“Seriously?” Jin caught a few droplets in his palm before fisting his hand. “Damn. You’re really full of yourself, aren’t you?” He then laughed loudly, spreading his arms wide and embracing the downpour that came down.
South: 알려지지 않은
2nd
정류장
[연결]
➶
“Stop.”
Claire stopped and turned. He was only mildly surprised to see Sigrid and Andres standing behind him. Surprised because the two had been keeping their distance from him up until this point relative to the rest of the gaggle. Mildly because he was in their True Conductor circle, after all.
Claire spread his arms, catching the light slipping down between the tall white pillars with his fingertips. “I’m stopping. What is it?”
The light did not reach Sigrid’s eyes. “Who are you?”
“You’ve been following me for fifteen minutes and you don’t even know who I am?” He peered over the two. “Do any of you know who I am?”
“You know how to get out of this maze,” Agape Rosario answered calmly from behind the duo. “That’s all I need to know. We can discuss payment later.”
Claire laughed. “I’ve always appreciated how straightforward people from the Twin Cities are.”
Ferris Hart who stood beside Agape asked carefully, “How much do you know about us?”
“Well, I’ve been watching you all for a while now,” Claire replied. “You can glean a lot about someone from stalking them.”
“I don’t mean to be rude since you’ve saved us, Haneul,” Albertine interjected, “but why is it that you’re interested in us?” He paused. “You are Yuseong Haneul, first son of the Seong Clan, right?”
“First off, I wasn’t the one who got you out of there,” Claire answered. “You accidentally got yourselves out of there by slipping through the roots. I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. Secondly, I can’t help but be curious about rejects.”
“Rejects?’
“The people Ndoto itself rejects,” Claire explained. “The ones who don’t have a place there or anywhere here. Why is that?”
“Rejects,” Usian mused. “Aptly put.”
Veles barked out a laugh. “Rejection? No, you misunderstand, Claire. It is not the world that rejects me, but I—Veles—that rejects that world.”
The comment made Claire feel a bit nostalgic so he chuckled.
Andres scribbled onto a notepad, The last question.
“Are we going to stand here all damned day or are we going to get a fucking move on,” Derik snapped, pushing past the group and Claire himself. He glared at a handful of students passing them by in a gaggle. “Why the hell is everyone here wearing a dress?”
When said toga wearing students met Claire’s eyes, they dipped their heads.
“It’s the fashion trend of the time,” Claire answered. “Of the 1400s-ish to be exact.” He eyed Ferris and Agape. “Right?” He didn’t wait for them to answer and pointed to Derik’s clothes. “You do realize you’re wearing one too, right?”
Derik looked down to see that he was indeed wearing a toga. “What the fuck?” He glared at Veles, who was also wearing a toga, as if he was the cause of all of his problems.
“What did you mean by roots?” Albertine pressed. “Does this… have to do with the gardener?”
“You’ve met the gardener?” Claire asked.
Albertine’s lips pulled thin. “Frankly, I’m not sure what I met, but in the conversations I have had with them, they alluded to ‘growing more gardens.’ I’ve always assumed that ‘gardens’ was a euphemism for something, but—”
“No, you’re right and you’re bright,” Claire noted. He spread his arms again, gesturing to the pillars that ran parallel to each other around them, to the painted mural of ocean waves swirling into clouds on the roof above their heads, to the marbled floor beneath their feet, and to the sprawling temple grounds beyond the pillars. “Ndoto’s a ‘garden’ and this place here is another ‘garden.’ You slipped here through one of the roots.” He pointed to Albertine. “‘What’s a root,’ you ask?” He paused. “Beats me but from what I’ve gathered, it’s a person, place, or thing that keeps a garden in place. Like a gated fence or something. Stops things that don’t belong in the garden from getting in while also stopping things from the garden from growing out.”
Ferris gasped. “So that facility in Small Services must be a root then!”
“Or it houses someone or something that’s a root,” Claire drew, “but since I’ve seen you and Agape around here a couple times, so it’s probably the foundation of that facility itself—”
Derik threw up his hands. “The hell are you taking us away from whatever that root for? I wanted to get out of that hell hole, not enter another one!”
“You want to end up back at that Small Services District so you can get locked up again?” Claire arched a brow. “I just said that a root was like a gated fence, right? Gates are like doors. You can have a lot of gates that lead to the same place, but that doesn’t change the fact that doors and gates can only lead to one place.”
“So you’re leading us to another door for us to escape through,” Usian concluded, “so we end up elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere hopefully in Ndoto,” Claire added.
“How kind of you,” Usian said. “But what do we owe for this generosity? As you know, Virgo’s isolation has been long and quiet, but that does not mean we aren’t aware of what goes on outside of our country. I have heard of you, Prince Yuseong—”
“I’ve heard of you, Usian Imamu,” Claire interjected. He started counting on his fingers. “Created an internal rebellion inside Virgo. Indoctrinated some chieftain kids into joining your merry band. Poisoned a chieftain’s daughter. Got yourself locked up in the Serpens Establishment for your political deviousness—”
“What…?” Ferris turned to Usian, stared at him, eyes widening slowly. “You’re… supposed to be in the Black Constellation Detention Center. How did you get here?”
“As we both know,” Usian drew, “your detention center is not unbreachable.” He chuckled. “That being said, I was suddenly arranged to be transported from Ophiuchus for reasons I still don’t know. Along that journey, I ended up here.” He turned back to Claire: “And while I may no longer be relevant in the political sphere—meaning my criticisms aren’t too valuable to most—should you be speaking so callously as someone enthralled and relevant in the political sphere myself?”
“Relevant in the political sphere myself?” Claire arched a brow. “Look again.”
Sigrid and Andres immediately tensed while Albertine took a step back and Veles’s smile turned from jovial to something a bit more frightening. He imagined it was because he no longer looked like Yuseong Haneul to them. Instead, he knew that in their eyes he now appeared a much older rugged man draped in a sky blue toga.
“You…” Ferris whispered. “You were on the boat with us before when Fortuna Romano appeared with the Sagittarian prince…” Her lips pulled thin. “Who are you really?”
“Certainly not the first prince of the Seong Clan,” Usian provided.
Albertine frowned and turned to him. “What?”
“You arrived here a bit after me so I’m surprised you don’t know—though I do believe Sagittarius tried to keep things under the table. Honor and dignity, so to speak,” Usian answered. “The peacekeepers were, however, kind enough to provide me with speculative tabloids and newspapers. Quite questionable reading material but they all landed on the same conclusion whenever they wrote about Sagittarius: the first prince of the Seong Clan is dead, the second missing, the clan itself defunct.”
Andres looked at Sigrid but she kept her eyes glued on Claire.
“Who the fuck cares about who is who?” Derik snapped irritably. “Do you know how many times I’ve met someone only for them to say they’re someone else because of some stupid vitae possession shit?” He smacked Claire on the shoulder. “Lead the way—”
“I was wondering who was creating a commotion,” a voice rang from behind Claire.
Uh-oh.
Claire turned to find a familiar robed figure standing between one of the pillars there. The figure was flocked on their left and right by whispering students.
“The Kaiser bastard—no, Kafke,” Derik muttered. “The hell is he doing here?”
“Kafke?” Claire sighed. “Look again.”
Ferris gasped again while Derik grunted.
Claire assumed that Derik and the rest now saw ‘Kafke’ as what Claire himself saw the figure as: an imposing woman with platinum blonde hair done in a simple ponytail.
“Capricorn!” Claire greeted the woman with widespread arms. “Is that really you—”
The woman was in front of him an instant, arms crossed. Claire was pretty sure she’d be able to crack his head like a walnut with her biceps if she wanted to. She asked calmly, “I’ve never seen you here before. How did you get here?”
“I slipped through the roots,” Claire answered with a shrug. He noticed some of Capricorn’s students inclining their heads at him so he returned the gestures with a wink.
Capricorn stared past his shoulder. “So Pisces’s teaching temple is a root.”
“It’s one of the ones that leads to something called the Small Services District Ndoto,” Claire explained. “Ndoto is—”
“I know what Ndoto is,” Capricorn interjected. “I’ve just come from there. It took time, but I was able to find a suitable candidate there.”
Claire looked him up and down, connecting the dots in his head. “Oh, you’ve been busy then.” He threw an arm around the woman’s shoulder. “Spill the details.”
Capricorn grabbed his hand and removed his arm from her shoulder. “It is most likely that Gemini holds some responsibility for these gardens and will need to be dealt with. I encountered them in Ndoto.” She squeezed his hand. “And what about you? Are you with Gemini?”
Claire chuckled and pulled his hand out of Capricorn’s. “You’re not the type to jump to conclusions so I’m surprised you said that.” He lifted his hands. “You probably didn’t see Libra’s message but she went all out in Ndoto recently. I’m just trying to find where all of these roots are.”
“To destroy them?”
“Did you destroy the one you used to get to Ndoto just now?”
“If I destroy that root, I won’t be able to get back to Ndoto,” Capricorn answered calmly. “For whatever reason, I only have something akin to physical form here.” Her eyes narrowed. “Was it not the same for you?”
“It was…. But I think my circumstances were much more fortunate than yours.”
Capricorn’s gaze drifted towards the group behind him. “Who are they?”
“Just some people who slipped through the roots too,” Claire replied, thumbing them. “They still know they’re from Signum and I think the ‘gardener’ either hates them or loves them or is pretty interested in them, so I thought they’d be useful.”
Capricorn studied the group carefully. “Are any of them True Conductors?”
Claire glanced over his shoulder. Sigrid and Andres were staring at him tensely, while Veles was busy admiring the murals on the ceiling. “Yep.”
Andres looked like he’d been slapped while Sigrid looked like she was ready to skewer him with her conducting spear.
Yikes.
Capricorn put a hand to her chin before pointing past him down the walkway. “If you go past this hall and down to the left, you’ll reach the river. Have a boatman take you down to the Therma Vita Album. That is a root.”
“Great. Thanks for the info.” Claire slid past her with a wave and gestured for the others to follow.
The group was just slipping past Capricorn when Capricorn abruptly threw out his arm, stopping Sigrid in her tracks. The grip on her conductor tightened.
“Wait. That’s a conductor, isn’t it?” Capricorn’s eyes narrowed. “A Rogatina model. A functional one.”
Sigrid’s eyes narrowed.
Capricorn lowered his arm. “You should keep an eye on them, Saggitarius.”
“Of course,” Claire replied. He continued forward, the others following him with various degrees of enthusiasm before he paused and looked back. “Do you ever wonder who’s coming up with all these names?”
Capricorn frowned. “Pardon?”
“Spores, gardens, roots, gates,” Claire listed them off as he counted on his fingers. “‘Spores’ was something that developed over the years. ‘Gate’s was something that came into being at the conception of Vega’s theories.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“But what about ‘gardens’ and ‘gardener’?” Claire wondered. “Where did those words and terms come from? Why do we know them?”
Capricorn’s frown deepened.
“I can’t remember.” Claire hummed. “It’s almost like someone opened up our heads and shoved all those words in, right?”
➶
“Grown from the grain,
Now you’re floating far away,
When you return from the harvest,
You see you’re all that remains,
Now you’re praying for the rain,
Bowing your head from shame.”
Sagittarius sang as he strummed his fingers across the lyre. How it made sound, Sigrid did not know. There were no strings on the instrument, yet whenever the man plucked the air a phantom string of dark blue light would appear just below his fingertip and a sound would emit.
The strums were in tune to the water lapping against the hull of their small boat and the grunts of the boatman swinging his paddle through the currents. Veles sat at the front of the boat with the paddler and occasionally gestured to some far off point in the distance. Just behind them on a bench sat Usian and Ferris and behind them Agape and Albertine. Derik laid a bench behind them, legs kicked up, arm covering his eyes.
Sigrid and Andres occupied the center of the boat, paying attention not to the front but to the back of the boat where Sagittarius lay, strumming and staring at some clouds that were drifting above them.
Sigrid finally stood and approached him. Andres hesitated before following.
“Want an encore?” Sagittarius asked when their shadows fell over him. “That one was written by Magatahoshi Miyazuki. Criticized the fifth emperor for coming from a poor clan and yet taking from the poor when he came into power. They didn’t call them ‘emperors’ back then by the way. That didn’t come until after Ophiuchus. Anyways, she was beheaded—Miyazuki, I mean. A shame. She was pretty.”
Sigrid ignored his attempt at conversation. “What happened?”
“You’ve got to be more specific.”
“I can feel Claire in you, but I know you are not him.”
“How do you know that?” Sagittarius looked down at himself. “Appearances aren’t everything. What if I’m Claire wearing an old man costume? ”
We’ve been calling out to him and you haven’t reacted, Andres scribbled down. Claire would never reveal us like that without good reason. Even if he became a saint candidate.
“One: how do you know that I’m just choosing not to respond to you?” Sagittarius arched a brow. “Two: what good would lying to Capricorn do? It’ll just come to bite me in the ass later if I lied. It’s not like he’s going to kill you. He’s trapped here and hasn’t been initiated in—what? A decade or more? Besides, what makes you think that the other saint candidates don’t know who you are already?”
So he didn’t know about the events that unfolded prior to and as a result of the Week of Blindness? Claire had once explained what he’d understood of the process of being baptized into saint candidacy as an easily understandable analogy: the host was like a cup of tea half-full, the saint candidate’s vitae a large jar of sake wine. Baptism was akin to pouring the jar into that cup of tea without stopping despite overflow. The tea remained but was diluted by the wine.
As Andres had suspected, this was different. Was it different because Claire had…?
The memory pulsated at her core. There had been no pain as the bullets had struck his chest. The only sensation that had given her a hint that something had gone wrong was the coldness that had crept up their limbs paired with the heat from the reservoirs Claire had fallen into. Then came the guilt—whether it was her own or Andres’s, she didn’t know. If he hadn’t faltered in his fight in the Serpens Establishment, if she had just been there instead—
Fault. Fault. Fault. Whose fault?
“But,” Sagittarius drew, “my nephew did accept me to be here in his place.”
Sigrid had learned of the Saint Candidate of Sagittarius the same time Claire had, although she had not been caught off balance by the fact that Claire’s aunt had been one like Claire had. Betrayal, hesitation: Sigrid had felt none of that. Ilseong Jin to her had been an enemy in masquerade. But still Claire trusted her, but still—
“Claire would not let himself be taken so easily,” Sigrid said finally. “Meaning he made a deal with you in order for this to happen. What was that deal?”
Sagittarius arched a brow. “You have so much faith in each other.” He glanced at the sky and strummed a string, then another. “You’re sort of right about the deal, but it was more like—”
The world suddenly turned on its head. The sky was down and the ground was up until the sky was up again and the ground was down. The world spun and Sigrid’s head pounded as a voice echoed inside of her head:
—a sit down to sign a fifty page document.
Sigrid caught Andres as he stumbled forward, as the world abruptly righted itself.
“You see why I haven’t been responding?”
Sigrid swallowed some bile that had climbed up her throat and wiped her mouth. She glared at the man. “What were the contents of the deal?”
“Sorry, but it was confidential. Claire’s request,” Sagittarius replied. He paused for a moment, thinking. “Actually, I’m surprised you don’t know the details already. Well, maybe I’m not too surprised.”
When is the deal over? Andres wrote. In other words, he was asking—when will Claire be back?
Sagittarius squinted at the note, glanced at both of them, shrugged.
It felt like someone had stabbed in the heart, but she knew she had to be strong for Andres.
“What I will tell you is that the deal is the reason you’re able to conduct with your conductors. It’s also the reason why you two are still alive.” Sagittarius strummed again.
Sigrid’s eyes narrowed. “He has dreams.” She did not know why she said it. Everyone had dreams. Dreaming was another form of living. But Claire’s dreams were—
Sagittarius lowered his instrument. “You have dreams.”
Sigrid felt another arrow wedge itself into her chest but she kept her gaze as hard as ice. “I don’t.”
“But you do,” Sagittarius countered. “You want to return to your tribe and take them all to the deepest, most unreachable parts of the mountain—far away from the world’s problems. Problems that don’t involve you. ‘Isolation’ is the colloquial term.”
Sigrid felt her cheeks burn but kept herself rigid. “My dreams are nothing compared to his.”
She had initially thought Claire a spoiled brat who hadn’t tasted the real world yet when she learned of his dream of ending his country’s political system. Idealists were usually ones who hadn’t yet experienced hardships that squeezed the idealism out of them yet. Squeezed like Andres had been squeezed by that Monadic orphanage. Squeezed like she’d been squeezed by the harsh winters of the mountain.
Claire had been different though. He was spoiled and yet not. An idealist and yet not. A leader and yet not. A dreamer and yet not. Charismatic and yet not. Here and yet not.
Sigrid grimaced.
Despite Claire’s two-facedness and constant contradictions, she couldn’t help but believe in him. No, not just ‘believe’. ‘Believe’ was too weak of a word. His dream was already written in stone in her mind. Carved into reality.
“There’s no such thing as one dream being more valuable than another.” Sagittarius tutted. “Because dreams are invaluable.”
“Save me the rhetoric—”
Sagittarius held up a finger. “It’s only when dreams become reality that they gain value. Then you can compare them.” He slowly sat up. “And that’s why you’ve got to make your dreams a reality. So they have weight and meaning. You can give up on a dream pretty easily, but when it becomes real, on the other hand…” His smile dropped momentarily. “You’ve got to keep going.”
Something glinted in Saggitarius’s eye. Not an emotion, but a reflection in his irises—
Sigrid whipped out her conducting spear and sent out an arc of liquid light. A loud shearing sound tore through the air as it met an oncoming ornate blade that hurtled in from nowhere. The light cut the blade clean in two and its two halves clattered onto the floor of the boat.
The boatman gasped in alarm.
Saggitarius abruptly rushed forward to the front of the ship, pushed the boatman back, and threw out his hand. A gust of light speckled wind burst out from his palm and set the boat rocking. Sigrid looked up to see ten similarly ornate blades hanging loosely in the air, tips pointed in their direction. No—they were not hanging in the air. They were screeching forward and towards them but were being held back by the howling winds. The blades were coated in light—a clear indicator of a Manipulator’s presence.
Sagittarius clenched his outstretched palm and the blue specks of light in the air condensed. A high-pitched whining noise resounded as the blades trembled and cracked until they shattered into dust.
Silence followed.
They were pulling on towards the shore now—rather towards a wide stretch of stairs that met the water’s edge. A woman with short blonde hair stood at the foot of the stairs. A toga hugged her figure and a gold circlet her head. There was a gash on her left hand that dripped into the water. Behind her stood an older man with light brown curls. Something about him unnerved Sigrid.
Sagittarius leapt off the boat and landed on the water’s surface.
The blonde woman lifted her bloodied hand—the crimson burning bright white—before she brought it down hard. Whining filled the air as more blades whistled out from the clouds and hurtled at Sagittarius. He threw out both of his arms like wings. The resulting gust sent a tidal wave upwards and swept the blades right out of the air. Their boat rode on the wave, was sent over the stairs, and crashed onto the marble path beyond it where it slowly, painfully screeched to a halt.
Sigrid whipped around to face their assailant but found the woman focused on Saggitarius who was ascending the stairs. He stopped in front of her and clapped both hands on her shoulders:
“That’s no way to treat an old friend, Altair! Don’t you recognize me?”
“Oh, my apologies, Sagittarius,” the woman, Altair, replied with a smile despite her flat tone. “I thought you were someone else.”
“Someone else worth skewering?” Sagittarius returned. “Last I recall, this era was a peaceful one.”
“There have been some thieves and pirates in the area recently,” Altair replied. “Foreigners according to the people. I was merely trying to take caution. When one masters the sword, they are able to maim instead of kill—or ‘skewer’ like you say.”
“Is that how it is?”
She smiled and dipped her head. “What brings you here?”
She was speaking some language that Sigrid had never heard before and yet she understood it. Was it Andres’s knowledge? Or—
“Capricorn sent me here,” Sagittarius explained, “to see the therma vita. The hot springs.”
“Did he…?”
Sagittarius gestured to them. “I’m just trying to show my company the way there.”
Altair glanced over her shoulder and studied them. Her gaze lingered on Agape. “I see. They wandered around and got lost then?”
“Exactly.” Sagittarius stepped onto the walkway. “Would you happen to know where the springs were? It’s been a long while since I’ve been here…”
Altair chuckled. “Are you implying you’ve forgotten? That’s contradictory to what Knowledge Bearers are, isn’t it?”
Sagittarius smiled. “I don’t remember you being this sarcastic, Altair. Did a lover’s quarrel happen that has gotten you in a bad mood?”
Altair stopped smiling.
“Speaking of lovers,” Sagittarius continued, “if we’re not able to find the hot springs, do you think I could ask Vega for some pointers?” He paused. “She is one of those, isn’t she—”
Before he finished his sentence, his neck was encircled by ten blades.
Sigrid tensed and felt Andres’s heart drop into his stomach. She could not help but again be reminded of the events that happened over the reservoirs that day. That day when she had been so close to yet too far away to lift a finger to save Claire—
The blades receded.
“I’ll show you where it is,” Altair finally said, waving her hand in the air and sending the swords away somewhere. “You need only ask.”
“Great!” Sagittarius clapped his hands before peering over Altair’s shoulder towards the young man standing there. “By the way, what brings you here Proteus?”
Proteus?
Andres tensed beside her.
But how can he be here? Isn’t this a different ‘garden’?
“Well, it certainly is nice to be noticed,” Proteus responded. “I was actually just entertaining a question Altair proposed earlier.”
Altair sighed.
“She was asking for analogies for a scenario in which one finds themselves in a state where they find themselves changing and find the world changing in strange ways seemingly without cause. A change that cannot be resisted and only sometimes noticed,” Proteus continued. “A state where a square can suddenly become a circle and yet maintain 90 degree angles. A state where a liquid is now a solid yet maintains its viscosity.”
Sagittarius hummed. “Interesting. And what do you say?”
“I say that if that’s the world’s state then we are in a higher power’s kaleidoscope,” Proteus answered.
A higher power’s kaleidoscope?
“The world changes as the deity turns the knob—we change and are refracted and reflected endlessly—but we are unable to detect the change because we are a part of the kaleidoscope itself.” Proteus mimicked the action of peering into one. “If one were to peer into the lens from the outside, however, the change would be obvious.”
Sagittarius threw his head back and laughed.
Proteus merely smiled. “Perhaps, Ophiuchus would find my proposal more worthwhile.”
Sagittarius stopped laughing. “… perhaps.”
Altair sighed again and began walking down the white path. “Please follow me, Sagittarius. Your companions as well. ”
Sagittarius complied after handing the boatman some change as a tip. He jerked his head, signalling Sigrid and the others to come along.
They walked through a small and clean open market full of stalls selling fruits and vegetables. The streets were clean, the people perusing them and manning them smiling and pleasant.
I don’t like it, she told Andres.
Andres merely smiled and inclined his head towards the ones who glanced his way.
Eventually they reached a simple-looking building with marble steps and great white pillars that held up a triangle-shaped roof. Altair led them up the stairs. The air seemed to grow warmer and warmer with each step they took, and so Sigrid was not surprised to spot steam spilling down the steps above.
She grimaced despite Andres finding comfort in the heat. This was one mundane aspect she’d bonded with Claire over: their preference for cold in contrast to Andres’s love for the sun.
At the top of the stairs, they found an open entrance that led into a dark and damp hall. Proceeding through that humid corridor was torture and Sigrid was left gasping alongside Derik when they emerged out from it. Andres surveyed the new area as she caught her breath so she was able to see the layout of it in her mind’s eye—
A large, rectangular steaming pool that had no roof. Flat steps leading into the pool. Crystal clear water. Long stone pillars holding up rigid arches carved with the shape of stars. Empty, but not quiet.
“This bathhouse has been under construction for the past few months,” Altair explained, “hence the lack of traffic.”
“Have you tried going in?” Sagittarius asked.
Sigrid managed to right herself. Sagittarius and Altair were standing beside each other facing the pool. Andres was at her side. The others were walking around the pool, inspecting it but not yet dipping their toes into it.
“I have.” The displeasure was clear in Altair’s voice. “Unfortunately, it appears I am rusty in swimming.”
“Really…?” Sagittarius mused in a way that Claire would. “Interesting.”
“Is it?” After a pause, Altair said under her breath: “We’ve worked together before. If our goals align, would it not make sense for us to work together again?”
“You remember that?” Sagittarius wondered as he approached the rim of the pool. “Kind of weird that you do. Are you sure you’re Altair?”
Altair merely chuckled. “Are you sure you’re the Knowledge Bearer of Sagittarius?”
Either in response to or ignoring the response, Sagittarius descended slowly, gradually into the pool. Each step took him deeper and deeper—first went his feet, then his ankles, his knees, his waist, his shoulders. The water did not appear disturbed as he sank which made it seem that an unnatural substance was swallowing him whole. His head disappeared a second later. Then there was silence.
Sigrid’s ears rang in the quiet. She imagined this was similar to what onlookers had seen when Claire had been swallowed by the reservoirs on that day. She wondered if they too felt as if a part of them had withered away and died in that moment.
Pathetic. These thoughts of mourning, regret, and self-pity. She would not let herself feel this away again. She would make it so this never happened again. She would kill for it.
“Are you not going to go?” Altair asked, pointing towards the pool.
Sigrid silently moved forward with Andres at her side. They stopped at the edge of the pool and shared a look. There were no thoughts, no fully formed words shared between them, and yet they shared the same sentiment and feeling and knew they were staring ahead at the same destination.
They took a step in synchrony into the pool—
—and stepped out into a dimly lit alleyway. The sky was pitch black above their heads save for thin white branches that stretched across the sky in place of the stars. There was a billboard in the distance advertising a new hit song by Cadence Foxman. Passersby in questionably bright clothing flitted to and fro in front of the alleyway entrance. In other words, they had somehow returned to Ndoto.
“What the fuck?”
Sigrid turned to find Derik and the others behind them. Veles was inspecting the walls as if he could find something interesting there, while Usian was silently taking in the night with widespread arms. Albertine watched him. Sagittarius—Claire—was nowhere to be seen.
Sigrid suddenly found her gaze drawn upwards and knew Andres’s gaze was drawn up all the same. There on the rooftop stood Claire. He smiled and offered them a two fingered salute before taking off into the sky.
A door swung open at the end of the alley a meter away, bathing them all in yellow light. A tall silhouette stood there at the threshold.
“Huh? Derik? What are you doing here?”
East: 희망
3rd (revisit)
정류장
[궁수]
➶
Arjun remained silent as Eunji disclosed the events that had unfolded for her since the day Arjun’s group had arrived in Ndoto as well as everything that had occurred at the mall. Claire—Sagittarius—inserted his own tales here and there.
“Atienna talked about the threshold of life and death earlier when Capricorn was at the mall,” Eunji murmured when she finished. She eyed Sagittarius. “Your situation is similar to Capricorn’s, isn’t it, Jin? You’re stuck somewhere else—in another ‘garden’—so that’s why you need Claire to move around in this one.”
“Sort of.” Sagittarius rubbed his chin. “‘Threshold of life and death’… that Virgoan mentioned bringing the threshold up closer to the world of the living, did she?” He whistled. “Now that’s a crazy idea, but…”
“So you’re helping us?” Kai asked.
“Helping you with what?”
“Helping us… get out of here.”
Sagittarius offered a shrug. “Sure.”
“So, basically…” Kai rubbed the side of his face and looked around. “…we need to destroy these root gate door things to get out of here…”
“You can try that if you want,” Sagittarius replied.
Kai paused. “Wait… isn’t that what you’re planning on doing? To help us get out of here?”
“First question: right now, no. Second question: right now, yes.”
“Right…” Kai stared at him for a moment before glancing over his shoulder. “Anyway, shouldn’t we leave this place? The mess and commotion is bound to get us some unwanted attention.”
“What mess? What commotion?”
Arjun swept the area. The glass that had rained down on them from the shattered windows was nowhere to be seen. No—the glass shards had somehow found themselves fitted back into place in the windows of the buildings around them. Arjun tensed while Kai took a step back.
“How…?”
“Well, it’s a good thing and a bad thing that you’re getting better and recognizing when the pieces don’t fit,” Sagittarius said. “But the more you become aware of it, the more likely you are to become pulled in by it, so I’d be careful if I were you—”
“What about Claire?” Arjun asked.
Mai, who had been uncharacteristically silent the entire time, looked up at this.
“What about him?” Sagittarius asked without looking back.
“What will happen to you and him after we escape this place?”
Eunji stepped forward now. “I’m looking into how to help both Jin and Claire right now so Claire can… come back. It’s hard since there’s no textbooks or experts I can refer to… It’d be nice if Prince Chance was here because I think he might be in a slightly similar situation… but…” She looked up and locked eyes with him. “I will do it.”
Arjun could not argue against the burning fire in his half-sister’s eyes.
“Are you a fool?” Mai scoffed. “How can you trust this fake?”
Sagittarius tutted. “Hey, that’s hurtful, Mai-mai. I have always been a loyal, diligent, serving member of not only the Seong Clan but all the clans of Sagittarius—except that one time I was Pema and that other time I was your aunt and that time during the 1600s…. but let’s not get into detail here. I still am the Saint Candidate of Sagittarius. What happened to the sweet innocent little girl who was always begging me to bring her souvenirs?”
Mai stared holes into the man.
“Mai…” Kai put a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “Listen…
“Are you serious?” Mai hissed back at him.
Kai spoke in their clan’s language. “I’m not saying that it’s a good idea to blindly work with him, but I am saying that I don’t think it’d be a good idea to not work with him—”
Everything in Arjun’s vision suddenly became dyed gold. There was no other shape, color, form, movement—nothing else but that gold. Not even a full second later, the color was gone. For a moment, Arjun wondered if he’d imagined it or if his eyes had just been tired. Then he heard Felix shout in alarm.
Sagittarius was laying flat on his back a feet meters away from where he’d originally been standing—as if he’d been thrown backwards by an unseen force. His head was missing. There was a splatter of red on the ground where his head should have been.
“Claire!” Eunji shrieked.
Soha and Felix were at Sagittarius’s side in an instant while Mai’s and Kai’s guards pulled close around them. Arjun stared at Sagittarius’s body in disbelief as he suddenly recalled how Claire’s body had fallen into the reservoirs like a puppet with strings cut on that day. Unlike that day, however, Sagittarius suddenly rose into a sitting position, the blood and flesh around him glowing a dark blue as they coalesced back onto his face.
Soha and Felix pulled back just slightly, watching tense with tightly concealed worry.
Once Sagittarius’s jaw clicked back into place, Soha knelt down and asked, “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Sagittarius rolled his neck. “That hurt though.”
“What the hell was that?” Mai glared out at the surrounding buildings. She addressed two of her vassals that had not been hurt in their battle with Csilla. “Go and survey the perimeter—”
“No, don’t.” Sagittarius held up a hand and then sighed. “That was just a warning.”
“A warning…?”
“For you?” Kai asked.
“For all of us.”
Arjun felt a sudden and sharp prick at his cheek. He lifted his hand to his cheek. It was wet. He looked down at his fingertips. Blood. Tensing, he looked up to see that Mai and Kai sported twin cuts on their left cheek and Eunji on her right cheek. Their vassals and guards sported small and thin cuts on either their arms or legs. Their makeshift weapons fell into pieces in their hands.
Eunji was immediately tended to by Soha while Mai and Kai were tended to by Liangshi. Arjun looked away from them and towards the east. He was certain that was where that gold burst had come from.
“Was that another saint candidate?” Kai asked. “That’s ballsy—attacking multiple royals like that.”
“Probably not another saint candidate.” Sagittarius squinted at the skyline before he walked back to the building’s edge and fell into a crouch there. “I wouldn’t start anything now if I were you. Besides, you’re not royalty here.”
Arjun studied him for a moment, watched as Eunji, Felix, and Soha came to stand beside him. After a pause, Arjun joined them and he was followed by Mai and Kai.
“What about the syzygy?” Arjun asked as he peered down at Sagittarius’s face.
The two—Claire and Saggitarius—were similar in their carefree nature but Sagittarius also had a lacksicaldasicalness that felt unnervingly honest.
“If you’re asking me what it is—”
“I would just like to know what you think of it.”
Sagittarius glanced at him. “I think that the syzygy is as sure as a skilled archer aiming at a target and firing off that arrow.”
Arjun searched his face before drawing slowly, “Many things can interrupt the trajectory of an arrow fired by even the most skilled archer. A change in wind, a bird passing by, a change in light, perhaps even an interruption by a third party.”
Saggitarius looked him up and down again just like he’d done in the Foxman’s bathroom and then smiled. “Exactly.” He stood up at the edge. “Everyone’s so focused on droning on and on about probabilities and certainties and numbers adding up, but the fact is that nothing is one-hundred percent. So, you might as well do whatever the hell you want. Maybe the syzygy happens, maybe it doesn’t—who the hell cares?”
Arjun held the man’s gaze as the seconds ticked by.
Kai suddenly noted, “They’re acting like nothing’s happened after all of that…?”
Arjun followed Kai’s gaze to the streets below where pedestrians were ambling along peacefully. It was peculiar that there was no commotion down there despite the explosions and lights earlier, but Arjun was not surprised.
“I mean, did anything happen?” Sagittarius asked. “Is there evidence of anything happening besides what’s in our heads?” His smile turned into a line.
“That Proteus person you mentioned,” Kai drew slowly, “he referred to this place as being a higher being’s kaleidoscope. Is… that what this is?”
Sagittarius threw his head back and laughed.
Kai frowned. “What? Isn’t it? It was just a question…”
“Listen, Kai, someone will only have power over you if you give them power over you. If you don’t, they won’t. That’s why your vassals and guards listen to you, isn’t it? Because they give you power over them.”
“Er…”
“If they didn’t, you wouldn’t be so special, would you? You’d just be like every other Sagittarian.”
Liangshi and several other guards bristled but kept their mouths shut. Sagittarius still had the appearance of a Sagittarian prince, after all, and he was a saint candidate. To step over the lines of honor and respect… It was unfortunate how things were.
“Don’t get offended. It was the same case for me. Back in the 1500s or something, people in Sagittarius revered me almost like a deity because they let me have power over them. I didn’t do much with it though—I’m not really into that thing—so I had a fall from grace. Look at me now. You guys didn’t even bow to me when you found out I was the Saint Candidate of Sagittarius. I’ll chalk it up to you all being confused, but even when I was Jin, I still got bows wherever I went. Is it because I’m Claire now and you haven’t given Claire power over you because you think you’re all on equal ground?”
“You want us to bow to you?” Mai asked. It was difficult to read her tone.
“No, of course not. Don’t want you to get wrapped in power politics right now.” He leaned forward towards the edge. “That is what makes the clan system great though.”
‘Great’?
Arjun suddenly felt nauseous hearing those words from Claire’s mouth even though he knew it was not him. He supposed he had no right to feel this way given how he had departed from the cause in the way that he did.
“It gives all the clans an even ground—at least it’s supposed to. That and it ties you all together because you’re family. Nothing is stronger glue, for better or for worse, than family.”
After a pause, Kai asked, “If it’s not a kaleidoscope then what would you call it?”
“It’s semantics,” Mai answered thickly. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does.” Sagittarius glanced at Mai before he nodded at Claire’s sister. “Say, Eunji, do you remember what I gave you for your sixth birthday?”
Eunji’s brows furrowed. “A… toy soldier from Cancer?”
“Right. And you told me you hated it.”
Eunji flushed. “I was a child…”
“Sure—but what did you do with that toy soldier in the end?”
Eunji quieted as she thought. “I pretended that it was a milkman and put him in my dollhouse.”
“Good memory,” Sagittarius complemented her. “If you wanted to, you could pretend that a toy prince was a student, a toy soldier a milkman or baker, a dog a cat, a scary monster a house pet, a criminal a movie star—and then you could shove them all into your little dollhouse and call it a family. They wouldn’t know any better, would they?”
Kai gulped. “So… if I’m following your analogy correctly, then… are these toys store-bought—er, hand-made—or… conjured? Is that really possible? Conjuring… life? I know research on it’s pretty restricted by Ophiuchus, but… isn’t life… complicated?”
Kai was a maestro of words as always but he also always asked what needed to be asked.
“Nah. Conjuring life is actually easier than you think,” Sagittarius answered.
Arjun felt unnerved by the casualness of those words.
“It’s all about knowing the mechanics of how things work and how biological processes work, but…” Sagittarius looked back down at the city.
“‘But’…” Eunji followed his gaze. “…imbuing life and sentience into something is an entirely different story…right?”
“Bingo.”
Imbuing life?
“Anyways, Proteus calls it a god’s kaleidoscope and the person who’s running the show calls it a garden—which can tell you a lot about them, by the way.” Sagittarius leaned forward with a grin. The pedestrians walking the streets below became reflected in his eyes. “I personally think it’s more like a spoiled little kid’s dollhouse.”
Northwest: 회복
0
정류장
[최후]
➶
“Stop.”
—Claire kept his voice even—
“I’ve made my decision.”
Ilseong Jin, his aunt, stopped in her tracks and craned her head back. “That was quick.”
Claire held out his hand in response.
“Are you sure?” Jin stared at it before turning to him. “This isn’t very honorable or heroic of you. Not very prince-like either. In fact, it’s pretty selfish and self-serving. A dishonor to your clan. People will really hate you or at least be pretty disappointed in you.”
Claire chuckled. “I already have at least one or two people out there feeling that way about me, so that’s not a really convincing argument.”
“You’ll be lonely. You’ll be trapped for a long time. You’ll regret it.”
Claire’s heart was already stirring with regret, fear, doubt, reluctance. More than anything, he wanted to turn back time to that day above the reservoirs of Ophiuchus—no, he wanted to go back to before that. To before the succession war, to before the Week of Blindness, to before he met Olive, to before Arjun left, to before they all decided to end the clan system. He wanted to go back to that day when he had taken a young Eunji out to their gardens and watched the clouds pass by over their heads. Their mother had been with them that day as had Felix and Soha and Andres and Sigrid too during an overlap.
That memory always came to him in moments like these—in the courts of Sagittarius, in those diplomatic meetings between countries, in the dark of night when he was running from assassins and enemies. Moments of fear. Like all those times before, however, Claire offered a carefree smile and laughed and lied—
“Honestly, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
Jin sighed. “You know, the one thing that I’m certain about after all my years of floating around is that no one ever really knows what they want. They flip back and forth, change their minds and how they feel, double back on their actions, regret, etcetera. You too, Claire. ”
She was offering him a way out, Claire knew. But he had to hold steady: “Come on, Aunt Jiji, it’s a good deal for you, so why are you trying to talk me out of it?”
Jin rocked back on her heels, looked him over carefully, and accepted his gesture.
North: 목적지
「32」
°
「
I am an arrow pointing,
not in the direction you wish to go,
not in the direction you need to go,
not in the direction others want you to go,
but towards that destination at the end of your journey.
」
°
Six Chances 
I’m also trans and I really don’t know how I’d feel about that, now that Eunji mentions it. good? but I like that I’ve earned any changes to my body through better knowing myself. I would have such mixed feelings
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That last bit that you mentioned is definitely one of the themes of part 5.
I wanted to spend more time on Eunji’s personal feelings about it but I had to keep the plot moving so I might make a short story about it instead. Eunji definitely has mixed feelings about the sudden change herself.
If you have any other thoughts/perspectives/concerns about the topic, I’d love to hear about them! Thanks for reading!
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on the positive side, someone representing my thoughts and feelings externally in the world would be extremely validating. Like never have doubts again validating. Assuming the Gardener was actually benevolent and didn’t put the thoughts there. And it would resolve the question that I’ve still been battling with of what I actually want
I’d have a perfectly accepting family unless they also have VNW, but then it leaves unanswered whether my faith in them would have ever born fruit. Certainly, there’s an answer that hurts much more than not knowing, but it would be such a relief and joy to have them come around.
Being correctly shaped would bring joy into every moment that I’m aware of myself, of course. I would be fully comfortable in my skin until I thought too hard about it
I think the most negative part is that I’d have a hard time not waiting on a rug pull. Whatever reality there is to this situation, it’s probably going away eventually, and then my ideal body would go with it. The ideal body is also, a bit, hmm, it sucks that now I’d be cursed with the comparison on changing back.
Changing the shape of my body is also an expression of bodily autonomy, and it would hurt a great deal to have it stripped from me. I finally escape the box that doesn’t fit right only to be put into a new, well fitted box? Certainly it’d be harder to want to leave, but the box was *itself* a part of the problem. I’ve always been indecisive when it comes to tattoos, but I feel like I’d need to reassert some control over myself. Maybe get a ⚧ to spite the non-VNW persona that may or may not kill me someday.
On the note of that non-VNW persona, it calls into question whether she’s gone through the same growth as a person that I have. Does she take the time to appreciate being comfortable in her skin? Has she learned to love and care for herself even when she isn’t living up to the person she wishes she was? Does she work to radically accept others?
Who is she?
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