Gunmage
Chapter 93: Things children do not say

Chapter 93: Chapter 93: Things children do not say

LUGH!!

She barged in, half expecting not to see him there.

But there he was.

Sitting at a table tucked against the far wall, framed by slivers of fading light, Lugh was hunched over parchment, a quill pen dancing across its surface.

Where he’d gotten either item was beyond her. Yet the moment her eyes caught the delicate ivory handle of the quill, she froze.

That was her pen!

A flood of questions swelled in her throat.

’You’re not mute?’

’What did you—what did my daughter do to you??!!’

But she swallowed them all, suppressing her instinct to demand answers. There was only one question that mattered right now.

"Where were you?"

Her voice echoed.

The room stilled

Lugh paused, the quill stopping mid-stroke. His head tilted slowly, like a crow watching a distant fire. His lips moved, murmuring aloud the words she had just said.

"Where was I..."

He repeated it with the distant cadence of someone reading a phrase in an unfamiliar language.

Then he spoke louder, his voice edged with something not quite human.

"I was... where you are. Where you were. Where you will be."

Silence hit the room, hard.

His presence had always been unsettling, but now paired with those words, a deeper discomfort sank into the bones of everyone present.

"Lugh... are you OK?"

Isolde’s voice was softer now, no longer demanding, but wary. Testing.

Lugh raised his head at last, turning to them slowly. His eyes shimmered faintly with unnatural light.

"I am fine. I am... stable."

A pause.

"The memories are aligning correctly today. There are only minor distortions, but they will fade."

Then, another pause. A flicker of hesitation.

"And if they do not... well. The last time they didn’t, it only took three days to remember which body was mine."

A sharp exhale. A guard moved instinctively, hand gripping steel.

Isolde blinked, the words chilling her more than she cared to admit. This must be why he rarely spoke. She finally understood.

"Three days, huh? That’s terribly inefficient."

Then, after a breath, she spoke again

"Lugh... people do not say things like that"

Her voice was measured and careful, as if speaking to forcefully might break something fragile.

"If you are unwell, you will tell me. Immediately."

"I see"

He replied simply, then turned back to his parchment, resuming his scribbling as though the conversation had never occurred.

Isolde withdrew.

Her guards, born of bloodlines loyal to her family, would not speak of what had transpired. That was not the problem.

She turned her gaze to Lirienne, still standing stiff as a board, her pale hands trembling.

"Lirienne."

"Y-yes, Mother?"

"You will speak of this to no one."

"U-understood."

And then she left. Her footsteps were silent, but her thoughts were not. Drakensmar had left a great many things behind in her stepson... and not all of them were scars.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, the ache behind her eyes growing sharper.

"Why... why did he have to run away?"

...

In a large room swathed in gentle pinks and soft golden hues, overflowing with stuffed animals and velvet cushions, two girls sat across from each other over a polished marble chessboard.

One was thirteen, the other twenty.

"Sister Sela, when will I be able to see Brother again?"

The younger asked, her tone careful, eyes locked on the board.

"Who knows?"

Selaphiel replied, rolling a pawn between her fingers.

"Why don’t you ask Mother?"

"She won’t allow it. She never does."

The girl shifted a rook forward.

"Ooh. That’s a clever move,"

Selaphiel said, impressed.

"How do the other kids your age cope?"

"They don’t. I never let them win. Except for Darius... sometimes."

Selaphiel chuckled, just as the door flung open with force.

"Lirienne!"

She scolded.

"Couldn’t you knock?"

"She always does this"

Aveline said, crossing her arms, small body trembling slightly with indignation.

Lirienne paused mid-step, lips parting.

"...sorry."

Both girls blinked.

Then, without waiting for a response, Lirienne strode toward the bookshelf and began rifling through its contents with hurried purpose.

"Aha!"

She declared, yanking free a dusty, worn volume titled

"Force Control: Beginner’s Primer."

"What are you doing with tha—"

"No time to talk!"

She cut in, darting from the room with unladylike speed, her hair catching the light as she vanished down the hallway.

Back in the study...

Isolde sat behind her desk, a solid, richly-stained piece of deep mahogany. The room was a carefully curated symphony of elegance.

Leather-bound chairs, plush cream-and-gold rugs, towering bookshelves arranged with artful deliberation, and vases of fresh-cut flowers positioned beneath vast windows that flooded the space with natural light.

It was a study shaped by a woman of power—and taste.

A sudden dimming of light drew her gaze upward. It lasted no more than a heartbeat.

And when her eyes dropped back to the room—Lugh was there.

Seated on the couch across from her.

No sound, no trace of entrance. He simply was.

A weight settled into the air, dense and cold.

Her hand slid without thought toward a hidden drawer, toward the silver dagger she kept tucked there for emergencies.

She barely brushed the hilt before his voice halted her.

"Do you love me?"

She stared at him, mind struggling to grasp the shape of the question. It came out of nowhere, yet something about it... felt planned.

Calculated.

"No."

Silence. The atmosphere strained beneath the weight of that one word.

"Then—do you hate me?"

"Yes."

"..."

"..."

"You do not hate me"

He said at last, voice calmer now.

"I’ve seen hate. I’ve felt hate. I lived hate. I know hate..."

He trailed off, trying, struggling, to make sense of a concept he could not seem to feel correctly.

"Hate has one definition. One universal understanding. But love..."

He tilted his head slightly.

"Love does not."

Isolde swallowed.

What the hell happened to this child?

If she said she understood what he meant, she’d be lying. But she wasn’t completely lost either. She understood enough to be disturbed.

"I must know more of this word. Love."

He looked her dead in the eye.

"You must take me to the church."

Isolde exhaled. For a moment, the tension in her shoulders released.

"...You want to go to the church?"

She asked, voice tight with suspicion.

The real church, the one behind the facade, was not a place she ever intended to send her children.

Not willingly.

"If you won’t take me"

He replied

"I will go myself."

"Fine, fine!"

She relented, standing up, her jaws tight.

"I’ll take you there."

Then she paused, her mind circling back.

This talk of love... it didn’t sit right.

"You didn’t do anything with Mirelle yesterday, did you?"

"I did."

She inhaled sharply...