Chapter 8: The Capital's Shadow
The next morning, Lucian was woken by a faint sound.
He opened his eyes. The spot beside him was empty. The pillow still held a trace of warmth. Lakyus had left not long ago.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes.
Outside, the sky had just turned light. Morning filtered through the gap in the curtains and drew a faint gold line across the floor. Distant birdsong carried from somewhere, along with the quiet sounds of servants beginning their day.
"This early?" Lucian muttered, and got out of bed.
By the time he had washed and dressed and come out of his room, Lakyus was already waiting for him at the end of the corridor. She had changed into a light blue dress, a white ribbon tied at the collar, golden hair braided in two loose plaits hanging down her chest, like a finely-made doll.
"Onii-chan!" Her eyes lit up the moment she saw him. "Hurry, hurry, the sun is already out!"
Lucian glanced at the barely-risen sun outside the window and was quiet for a second.
"What time is it even..."
"It's not early!" Lakyus grabbed his sleeve and started pulling. "The market is most lively in the morning, Aldred said so!"
Lucian let himself be dragged along and sighed.
Two small figures made their way along the capital's streets toward the market.
"Onii-chan, look!" Lakyus pointed ahead excitedly. "What's that pointy roof over there?"
"Probably a temple."
"A temple? Which god is it for?"
"No idea." Lucian answered lazily. "Could be the water god, could be the earth god. There are a lot of temples in the capital. They all look about the same."
Lakyus nodded with a thoughtful expression, then turned her eyes toward the market entrance.
Entrance was a generous word for it. In practice it was a street, not particularly wide, packed on both sides with stalls of every kind. Cloth, ironware, grain, medicines -- almost anything you could think of was there somewhere. The air was a layered mix: wheat from fresh-baked bread, the salt and iron of cured meat, the clean green scent of fresh produce, and under all of it the dust of a crowd pressed into a tight space.
Lakyus stopped at the entrance, eyes going round. "Oh," she breathed. "So lively..."
"Come on." Lucian took her hand. "Stay close to me. Don't get lost."
The two of them pressed into the crowd.
Lakyus was curious about everything. She stopped at a cloth stall and studied the colored fabrics for a long time. She stopped again at a blacksmith's display, staring at the bright blades and farm tools laid out in rows. Finally, a stall selling candied fruit caught her eye, and she turned her most hopeful look on Lucian.
Lucian bought a small packet and pressed it into her hands.
Lakyus cradled the packet, took a small bite, and her eyes immediately curved into crescent moons.
"Delicious!" she said, indistinctly. "Onii-chan, have one too!"
She held a piece up to his mouth. He bent down and took it.
Actually quite sweet.
They kept walking. Lakyus ate and looked around and asked questions in an unbroken stream.
"Onii-chan, what's that smoky thing?"
"Probably a roast meat stall."
"What about that one? The one with the long queue?"
"A bread seller, most likely."
The market grew more crowded as the morning wore on, people pressing shoulder to shoulder. Lucian kept a firm hold on Lakyus's hand. Lakyus, for her part, was not worried at all. She found it exciting, and kept standing on tiptoe to see over the crowd.
The sun climbed higher. The market filled further. Lakyus had finished her candied fruit and had already settled her eyes on a honey cake stall.
Lucian was just reaching for his coin purse when he heard something.
A sound, very faint.
Like crying. Soft and suppressed, swallowed by the noise of the crowd until it was barely there at all.
Lucian stopped and frowned.
"Onii-chan?" Lakyus noticed. "What's wrong?"
He listened. The sound seemed to be coming from an alley nearby. He had no interest in getting involved. But there was something in that crying he couldn't simply set aside.
Despair.
"Baron Livian again," the stall vendor said, almost to himself. "Another little girl. Gods protect the poor thing."
Baron Livian. A titular baron resident in the capital. Connected to Eight Fingers. Very likely a direct "supplier" for them.
Lucian's mind ran through everything he knew about the man.
This type of noble was, even within the Re-Estize Kingdom, near the bottom of the hierarchy. The great lords consumed the common people just as thoroughly, but actually getting personally involved in this fashion was still something the rest of the nobility looked down on.
Even so, Baron Livian was still a noble. Interfering in another noble's "hunting" would cause unnecessary trouble. It might even earn his own father's disdain. This kind of "meddling" would mark Lucian as someone not worth backing, leading his father to start grooming a replacement heir. And then the plan to approach the Bone King would change from arriving with assets to the scenario of a disgraced heir forced to beg the Great Tomb for help. His standing would drop sharply.
'...The risk is too great. Not proportionate to the benefit.'
Lucian drew a mental line under it. This was the most rational decision, the one most aligned with his interests.
But when that cry came into his ears again, that small, weak, despairing child's cry, the fist he had just let go of clenched again, not by his own will.
'Damn it all.'
He said it inside his head. Not for anyone else. For himself. Cursing himself: he was a transmigrant. He had read the original work. He knew exactly what the nobles of this Kingdom did. And yet, hearing the cry of a child he had never met, something inside him hurt anyway.
The pain was faint and unfamiliar. But it put cracks in every piece of mental fortification he had just built.
He breathed in and pushed the feeling down.
"Let's go."
He took Lakyus's hand and stepped forward.
This was not his business, and not the kind of business he should make his own. All he had to do was take Lakyus away from here, keep browsing the market, buy the honey cake, and everything would be like nothing had happened. He was still the future heir to the noble Aindra family, that...
His palm suddenly felt empty.
'...That qualified transmigrant, the one who could watch from the sidelines with cold eyes for the sake of survival.'
Lucian's thoughts stopped dead.
He spun around.
Lakyus had already charged into the alley.
Her figure small, the light blue hem of her dress lifting as she ran, gold braids swinging behind her. Sunlight fell straight down from above and caught her hair, making that patch of gold almost too bright to look at.
"So cool..." Lucian murmured, without thinking.