Knights Apocalyptica

Chapter 264: The Couple

No quarter must be given to the mutated; they are not like us, and their minds have been corrupted by whatever foul taint has come out of those rifts.

Do not put them down with impunity, but rather, with compassion. They are limited now, driven to beings closer to animals than people. We can only hope that not all of humanity has been infested with whatever plagues them.

Do not shelter. Do not aid. Execute with compassion, any of those blue-skins.

-President Rosewell, Executive Order 312 (301, 3rd Era)

Wedding bells rang. Like everyone else in the crowd, Boldwick stood up to pay his respects. He straightened his finest suit and stood with his best form at attention. Beside him was Robin; definitely not his date, but he’d taken her as his plus-one, simply because he had had little time to spend with his student aside from the brief reports and endless meetings.

There wasn’t much free time lately, and even now, attending this wedding was an obligation, but he tensed regardless.

If things were going to go sideways, this was it. The bride and groom had a fistfight days before, according to the reports. Knowing his student, Colin, the young man’s ego could easily implode and make a scene, even now.

The groom stepped out from the side passage, standing at the altar; this was not a church, but rather, the interior of a private cavern, decorated with more flowers than a biocavern, and filled with enough gold and silver to fill several nobles' manors, with a long crystalline chandelier bigger than a house hanging far above.

Colin moved stiffly, then stood in the center of the cavern, right beside the wedding party, where two others of Boldwick’s students stood already.

“He looks a bit more cheerful than usual,” Dame Robin observed.Boldwick squinted. There was a slight scowl on his face, and… damn it all. “The makeup isn’t hiding his bruises well at all.”

So there it was then, confirmation of the reports. Wonderful. Let’s just hope this doesn’t end in utter destruction. With the Crown pushing so heavily for this marriage, if those two decided to disobey… Not only that, but how much of the nobility knew about the fight? The thin sheen of makeup surely wasn’t enough.

Goddess.

He hardly had a second to dwell on the potential trouble before the bride walked in from the end of the hall; her bridesmaids filtering in from behind, holding the train of a stunning white dress. The bride walked stiffly, soreness in every step, wincing as she moved.

“They’re all going to know,” Boldwick said with a sigh. It would be damage control for weeks. And that was if the wedding went off without a hitch.

“You’d be surprised how many details untrained nobility miss. They’re not looking at her gait or her face. They’re focusing on the dress, the feeling of the room, and the way the bells are ringing. How do they feel about the wedding? To them, the bride and groom are just set pieces influencing their enjoyment."

"I'll take that with a bit of hope." Boldwick stared at the two of them. Colin wasn't looking at the bride. Alexandria was focused on reaching the altar.

"I got wine earlier; the gossip at the table was already quite interesting. The reception is going to be ripe for information gathering," Dame Robin continued in a hushed voice. Under the guise of the live band and the blissful traditional notes of wedding music, there was quite a bit of privacy for their chat.

Boldwick tore his eyes away from the two of them and stared at her. "You weren't invited to work. Relax, Robin."

“Are you relaxed?”

“I am here to work. It's critical to the Kingdom's goals that this goes off without a hitch. More than anyone here knows. And my students are the ones intimately involved in the wedding party. I’d be a poor mentor if I wasn’t ready to help.” Boldwick returned his attention to the bride and her approach. She’d sped up; it would be seconds before she reached the altar, seconds before the wedding either collapsed or thrived. And, he hoped, she hid her wounds enough to throw off the watching nobles.

“I’ve taken a hand in a lot of their instruction as well. I also have a keen interest in their success.”

There was a note there. A more dangerous note than he'd expected.

Once more, Boldwick was forced to look away from the impending danger.

“If it’s my job to relax, while you work, then you’ve got to give me the room to do so, Sir. I’m done waiting for the meeting. Inform me, Boldwick. Tell me I’m being deployed on the expedition, and then I can finally take it easy.” She clutched her hands, a dare in her gaze that challenged him.

When did she get defiant?

Boldwick sucked in his breath. The music was swelling, and Robin's eyes, turned towards him, were hot enough to burn through steel.

It shouldn’t be a surprise, really, that she’d heard about the expedition. With her promotion, she was intimately involved in everything related to internal intelligence gathering. And there wasn’t a way Boldwick could be all that discreet, not with the required logistics and internal cooperation between the Orders.

But the worst part was that she already knew his answer. She was making him say it, now.

"We should leave that for later," he said. The bride was footsteps away from the altar.

“I insist we deal with it now.”

“Fine. You will not be accompanying us on the expedition. I am truly sorry; you’re needed here. Far more than out there.”

"So you're telling me both Erec and Colin get to go, and I—your first student—am forced to sit here at home—"

“It isn’t like that. I don’t even want them to head out with me. How do you even know they’re going—“

The bride reached the altar, and the music hit a deafening roar, cutting into their conversation. Both a blessing and a curse, since Boldwick felt Robin glaring at him with an intense hatred; normally, this was the point where a bishop or even the Cardinal himself would’ve walked out and begun the ceremony. However…

The King stepped out; the flag of the Kingdom of Cindrus unfurled from above as he walked, taking a place before the bride and groom.

They stood, tense, their eyes staring at one another, and then, they stepped closer, taking each other's hands with some gentle guidance from the King. Boldwick let out a small sigh of relief, the threat of them once more coming to blows at the front of the altar somewhat alleviated. They might still ruin their entire wedding, but at least it did not appear to be coming from a fist.

Robin let out an angry noise next to him, and Boldwick tried his best to ignore it, knowing that once the ceremony ended, he’d have to contend with the weight of that anger.

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When the King spoke, his voice radiated with a magical power, spreading the words through the room in an overwhelming wave of sound. The music ceased at his first word, leaving them in silence aside from the speech.

"We’re bleeding as a Kingdom. And I sit in my throne, overlooking my people in their time of grief. We’ve lost people we’ve cared about in the destruction. In forced grief, we’ve had no choice but to look at ourselves and where we are going as a Kingdom. A lot of us have seen losses and turns of events that upended our whole lives, and even today we struggle to reconstruct what we can from what we’ve lost." His voice carried, and it met a quiet room. None dared interrupt.

For a second, the guise of unremarkability that normally surrounded this King vanished. In its place sat the proud King, Restfos the Second. His head held high, a glimmer of power in his eyes and a regality to his stance that insisted it was his place to be heard. The silence only grew longer as he let it stretch, testing the crowd's resolve. Boldwick gave a shiver.

He decided it was long enough.

“But we’re not here today to discuss those losses, beyond an acknowledgment of what has been. What I see here before me now, hand in hand, are two who have a… unique… form of love. A type of love that we can all see on display before us, the type of love that will be the future of this Kingdom. These two represent decades of familial honor. The prime bloodline of House Nitidus and House Doctus. Two branches of our nobility that have supported our Kingdom for ages, and today, we celebrate the union of those houses, not just in marital bliss, but also in a union of love.”

The bride and groom leaned into one another; though everyone’s eyes were forced upon the King, the two of them seemed immune somehow—the bride said something only Colin could hear, and the boy scoffed and smiled at her, the scowl that had been on his face the entire event bleeding away to nothing.

The King paused his speech, staring at them with a fond smile, the way a proud father might stare at his children. “I think, maybe, that the speech could go on longer. About them, about their accomplishments and services, not just as families but also individually to the Kingdom. But I fear my words could not do justice to explain it in full. So, I’ll cut to the chase quicker than a priest might have in my place—Colin, of House Nitidus, if you would give your vows.”

Once more, the King vanished beneath a shroud of unremarkability, surrendering command of the room to the groom.

Colin startled, drawn away from his bride, his eyes landing on the King, and then flashing out over the vast crowd of nobility witnessing the event, as if he’d forgotten where he was. For a brief second, his eyes met Boldwick's. He gave his student a nod of recognition.

Colin cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his words were amplified by that same magic which had affected the King’s. “I am… I am not an easy man to love. I think that much I will say before you all, yet this woman has found it in her heart to accept me. That is not something I can easily pay back, nor can I easily cover with my vows just how much I owe her for that. I am not one for speeches like this, so please excuse the brevity… Alexandria, I vow to treat you as my equal in all things. I vow to always see you in the light, for the woman you are. I vow to respect you, the way you demand, and if I fail, I permit you to put me in my place. I vow to fight for your honor, just as much as this Kingdom’s. And, I vow to be by your side until the day that I no longer can.”

Alexandria stared at him, her fingers trembling in his.

Boldwick's breath caught. Gone were the instincts that, after their fight a couple of days ago, today would only spawn more political issues, and in their place was affection. It was there, present for all to see, even more bare than the poorly covered bruising: love and a vulnerability he wasn’t used to seeing in his student.

Colin stared at her with an intensity that he applied when learning his spells; Alexandria stared back with a smile that didn’t care about anyone else in the room.

Even Robin let out a small gasp next to him, hit by the weight of his words, and for a second, let her anger at him subside.

Remarkable.

Alexandria took control of the conversation, clearing her throat before giving her vows. “I vow to be by your side, no matter the pain this world brings. Together, we’ll get through it all—I’ll have your back when no one else does. When you push hard, I’ll push harder. If you punch me, I’ll punch back; and if life punches us, we’ll both slam our fists into its face. I vow that we'll be better together, my love, than we ever were separate; and if you doubt me in that, I’ll show you, I'll show all of these people that our love, though unique, is the type they should all strive to find for themselves," Alexandria said, her voice soft, despite the magical enhancement.

The crowd once more slipped into a silence in which one could hear a pin drop. Among at least a thousand nobles, many of whom liked the sound of their own voice more than anything else, there was nothing but silence.

They all stared at the bride and groom.

Their hands tightened. Their eyes took on a desperation; their fingers entwined as they subtly pulled closer. Not even aware that they’d been pulled into one another’s gravity.

The King let it linger; a masterfully orchestrated smile on his face, and once the moment threatened to stretch for just too long, he spoke.

“Let us depart, and keep in our minds the words of our beautiful Bride: my people, we are stronger together than we ever were apart. Colin of House Nitidus, and Alexandria, formerly of House Doctus, with the power wielded by me, regent of this kingdom, I declare you lawfully wedded beneath the eyes of the Crown. You may kiss the bride,” the King declared.

Colin did just that, without a moment of hesitation, taking Alexandria in his arms as he dipped her, the two entangling in one long, meaningful kiss. A light shone from above, highlighting them like statues. Behind them, the wedding party began to cheer. Erec, Enide, Garin, and Olivia—all of the youth Boldwick had grown so familiar with, filled with the vitality of life that slipped away as age set in.

Boldwick clapped along with everyone else, feeling his eyes tearing up, and a sniffle next to him reminded him of the angry Knight at his side, also clapping along with the crowd in a deafening roar of hooting and hollering.

The rest of the ceremony went quickly. The bride and groom were escorted out by the wedding party, and the guests were left to filter out with the accompanying soft music; the reception was taking place in a different part of the same private cavern, and promised to be a party.

With the magic of the ceremony gone, the long, crooked nails of dread once more dragged their way into Boldwick. He tried not to look at Dame Robin as the two began to filter out of their seats. After this, he’d head back to his office—get some more work done.

Preferably, avoiding the rest of the no doubt hostile conversation his student had in store for him.

Robin stopped that plan with a firm yank on his elbow.

Boldwick sighed, rolled his shoulders, and turned to face her. Odd, that it felt harder to do than facing off against some of the monsters he’d slain, but then life was filled with many odd things like that.

She had a frown. “This trip is different, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Believe me when I tell you, if I could, I’d have left those young Knights back in the Kingdom. The King has left me little choice in the matter. But you? I can keep you protected.”

“I don’t need protection, Boldwick. And if I am here, who is there to protect you?”

People slid around them, some nobles giving haughty backhanded complaints as they were forced to go around.

“…No one. But then, even if I try to protect them, that’s the problem. You cannot protect someone for every second throughout the day. Nothing is certain. And the young Knights up there today are our future. You are our future. And I will put every ounce of my power into ensuring that the future can go forward, can make this new world a place better than the one I grew up in. Be angry at me if you want, Robin. I will not reconsider my position.”

She stared, still giving him a deep frown. But it faded. The anger was no longer there, but only a sadness, one with a depth that might as well have been her stabbing him in the heart with a sword.

“I want to protect them, too. I want to protect you.”

“Protect them by ensuring our future here. Your work is something I can’t do, that no one else in this Kingdom has. That is the issue with duty. It makes you travel roads at times that you would rather not. It makes demands in places of your life where you're not comfortable having demands put on you. And it tests you, every time, making you question where your discipline ends. The one saving grace is that duty does not control your feelings. Let yourself blame me, if that’s what you wish, and make it easier. As long as you're willing to follow my orders and understand why I give them, then I will accept that resentment.”

Robin hung her head; she hid the tears well, discreetly wiping them away.

She looked back up to him after a handful of seconds. "I don't think I'll stop being angry at you. So, you’ll forgive me this. You’re coming with me to the reception. I won’t hear otherwise. I’m angry, Boldwick, and I deserve the right to rip into you for the rest of your evening about your decisions. If I am to obey your orders, you owe me that at least. And, once that is done, you will dance. You will relax, just like you keep trying to force your students to.”

She stared with a ferocity that would make monsters cower. Boldwick flinched. He squared his shoulders and gave a nod, already filing away his responsibilities for the night and planning to reschedule tomorrow to accommodate this new duty.

"Fine, then."

One night. He’d permit her that. He owed her that much, but afterward, the weight of the world could crash down again, as it always did.

Tomorrow, he’d send a letter to the groom, informing him to meet him at his office. And then, a day after that, he’d have the displeasure of telling him and all his newest students that once more they were going to be traversing into a wasteland filled with monsters, danger, and the unknown faction to the East with only a week and a half’s notice.

Tonight, he’d just be Boldwick, suffering an angry student. Just one night, he could relax.