Beast Gacha System: All Mine

Chapter 296: Ready

"Please don’t worry." Cecilia said. She settled into the chair beside Oathran, her hands folded in her lap. "We’re not time travelers."

Everyone looked at her.

The room was quiet with only the distant sound of waves moved against the shore. The wind that came through the open windows carried the salt smell of the sea and the last warmth of the day.

August was sitting across from her, his hands on his knees, his face still tight. Eliam was between him and Eastiel, more relaxed, but his eyes were sharp.

Meanwhile, Roarke was perched on the edge of a chair near the door, and Arkai was right beside him.

"And no," Cecilia continued, "we didn’t change either."

"Something just got added."

Added?

The fathers and Roarke raised their eyebrows. August’s hands tightened on his knees, while Eliam leaned forward, just slightly.

Cecilia wanted to tell them about age. About the centuries that Oathran carried, the decades that Arkai had lived, the years that Eastiel had spent becoming the man he was.

She wanted to explain that her first husband was four hundred years old, that her second had ruled a kingdom, that her third had buried a father and learned to be a king without him.

She wanted to tell them about the weight of time.

But more than age, she wanted them to understand something else entirely.

"Memory." She said. "The gods added some memories to us."

August frowned. He somehow felt that the ground was thinner than he had ever thought. The world knew... might be more fragile than anything he had ever imagined.

Eliam tilted his head, his eyes still sharp, but now there was curiosity in it, maybe. The usual hunger of someone who had expected that the world was stranger than it seemed.

"You might think it’s added from the future," Cecilia said. "But that’s not quite true either."

She hummed, considering, her eyes moving from August to Eliam to Roarke, who was leaning forward now, his earlier panic forgotten, his whole attention focused on her. "It’s from... a different world. And it’s quite a big difference."

The words landed.

Immediately, August’s eyes widened. His hands, still on his knees, tightened until the knuckles went white. Eliam’s sharp gaze sharpened further, the lines around his eyes deepening, his mouth pressing into a thin line.

The implication of what their sons had told them these last few hours...

August remembered that Arkai had asked for an apology. That his son had spoken of slaps and dungeons and months of punishment.

That he had said that he forgave him. He always had.

In a different world, had August done those things? Had he locked his son away? Had he raised his hand against the boy he had raised? Had he been the kind of father who did not listen, who did not ask, who did not see?

And Eastiel... Eastiel had told his father that he had died too soon. That he had left nothing for his sons to do, nothing to burn, nothing to avenge.

That he had cleaned up the world and left them to live in the peace he had built, and that they had not known what to do with themselves in a world that did not need saving.

So, in a different world, had Eliam died? Had he left his sons without a father, without a purpose, without the chance to say the things that needed to be said?

"Then..." Eliam asked, trying to hold something that was already slipping through his fingers. "What is this trip? Why does it feel like you’re going to disappear?"

He did not look at his son. He was looking at Cecilia, at her sea-glass eyes.

"We won’t disappear." Cecilia chuckled gently.

She realized they did not know that it was not Cecilia and her three husbands who would disappear. The fathers were the ones who would disappear. Along with this world, or perhaps the access to it.

"You won’t leave, then?" August asked roughly.

That...

Cecilia could not answer honestly.

So she would not tell them the truth.

"We won’t go anywhere."

It was the first lie she had told in a long, long time.

***

The night ended there.

The villa settled into silence. The lanterns were dimmed one by one, the windows closed against the cool sea air. Cecilia and her husbands moved through the corridors and disappeared into their room. The door closed behind them.

The fathers did not sleep.

August stood by the window in his room, looking out at the dark water, at the moon that was sinking toward the horizon. His hands were clasped behind his back, his face was still, his whole body still.

He would not sleep tonight. He would watch and wait, make sure that his son was still there when the sun rose.

Meanwhile Eliam sat in the chair by the door, his communication crystal in his hand, the image of his wife flickering softly in its depths.

He had told her about the beach, about the glowing sand, about the way Eastiel had run across it like a child.

He had not told her about the other things, though. The things his son had said and the things he had understood. He too would not sleep tonight. Just like August, he would sit here and watch. To see his son here when the morning came.

Roarke lay on the bed in his room, staring at the ceiling, his hands folded on his chest, his face blank.

He, of course, still did not know why he was here. But whatever it was that made him worthy of being here... he prayed he would continue to be worthy of.

For as long as his brother, Arkai was alive.

***

In the room at the end of the corridor, Cecilia lay on the bed, her hair spread across the pillow and her eyes open.

The lantern had been extinguished. The moonlight came through the window, pale and soft, and the sound of the waves was distant, endless, the sound of something that would go on long after they were gone.

She sighed.

"Now," she said, and her eyes were on the ceiling, and her husbands were beside her. "Are we ready to go?"