Confessions
As Archon turns to follow her, Xath turns and makes her way towards the forest which surrounds the city. When they reach a secluded enough spot, she turns to face him.
“If I couldn’t feel you up here,” she says, pointing to her head, “the first words out of my mouth would be ‘Who the hell are you and what have you done to my fiancée?’” She waits for an answer, but he says nothing and tries to hide his reactions in the shadows. She continues. “But since I can feel you up here,” she grabs his arm to keep him from hiding, “I want you to tell me what is going on with you.”
“The war has changed all of us,” he says. “I’m sure you have felt it as well. I’m trying to end this war, and the circle just thinks I’m trying to martyr myself again.”
“Changed?” she asks indignantly. “I’m sure you remember, Archonus, that I have gone through some major changes throughout the course of this war. But through it all, I have still managed to retain the true essence of myself. And lately I fear that you have lost that. What has happened to you?”
“Is the truth really what you seek?” he asks solemnly. She nods. With a heavy sense of finality he says, “So be it.”
In a rush, a barrage of images and memories flood through the rings. Xath witnesses first hand what truly happened to Oceanus, including Arfin’s wish, the deck of many things, the armies of angels and demons, Archon being sent to the Bluestar, his wish to dispel the apocalypse that Arfin had unwittingly unleashed, and his swearing of the oath to the Lichlord. A blur of scattered memories flood through, and she feels his conflict in both identity and love. Before she can catch her breath, the barrage begins again, this time beginning with the death of Archonus Bluestar, through his own eyes. As Laren drives his blade into her neck, she falls into darkness; the only sound she hears is the scream of Archonus Arendorr.
Once again, she finds herself on the docks of Oceanus, this time as an onlooker. She sees Archonus Arendorr and Archonus Bluestar battling on the docks and watches as they tumble into the wreckage-choked waves, hundreds of feet below. With a start, she returns to the present, the one Archonus standing before her.
“That is my change,” he says, “if you consider it a change at all.”
Xath trembles, trying to absorb all of this information, and she hurriedly sits on the leaf-strewn ground. She looks up to him, a strange mixture of sympathy, shock, confusion, and compassion on her face. For a few moments she is too shocked to speak. Archonus takes a step back into the shadows and turns away, trying to hide the look of regret on his face. A few moments pass and she speaks. “I’m glad you told me, Archonus.”
She stands and embraces him. He returns her embrace, but turns his head and stares off towards the palace. She steps back, noticing where his attentions have turned. “And so you are now both Archonus Arendorr and Archonus Bluestar.”
“Both,” he says, “or neither.”
“And you love her,” she asks, but it is more a statement than a question.
“I…I don’t know,” he says, as his confidence in his words drains noticeably. “I remember loving her.”
She nods, remembering what she felt through the rings. “Just as you remember loving me.” She turns away, trying to conceal the tears welling up in her eyes, but as she does, he grabs her arm and spins her around to face him. “I do love you,” he says with renewed confidence, “and that will never change.”
A sad smile crosses her face. “And you do love her as well. I felt it.” She pauses. “But at least you do not hate me, as I had feared.”
“I don’t—Why would I ever hate you?” he says with complete sincerity.
She looks down, “Because…I lost your son, and…and our baby.
“You did not lose them,” he says. “They were taken from you.”
“Then why did you threaten me?” she asks.
“Threaten you?” he replies, sounding confused.
She pushes her memories through the rings. How he grabbed her by the arms and shook her, backing her up towards the wall, staring her in the eye and shouting about how he thought she’d be grateful that he was showing this much restraint.
“Restraint from going after Blackadder,” he says. “Not you.”
Seeing those memories again opens the floodgates to the pain she had been working so diligently to wall off. “Then why did you shout at me?” she asks, her voice rising. “Why did you go on and on about duty and how I mustn’t be weak in this time of war? How we had no time for comfort. No time for pain, or sorrow. We must push our emotions aside and go on with duty? No time for anything but the cause?”
“Because we need you; because I need you. We—I couldn’t let you fall in on yourself and be lost. I needed you to be strong.”
“Well you had a damn strange and hurtful way of showing it,” she says. Then she pauses and takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I know you went through a lot then, but you were not the only one. Do you know what she did? Do you know what she said?”
“Tell me,” he says. “No—show me.”
And she does; from the moment she teleports out of Caer Albion, through her return, and his awakening. He grimaces in pain, and then opens his eyes, looking off into the distance and calculating. After a moment, he looks back to her, and pulls her into a tight embrace. He whispers “I’m sorry.”
