LTSV - Side Stories - 10 - The Duel (Patreon)

If Cecily had to be possessed by memories of her own past life, she was almost relieved that she had an older sister who’d been doing it for longer and for whom this was all old hat. Granted, their experiences weren’t identical. Mira seemed to perceive herself as a single consciousness that inherited different bodies from women who’d died in crisis. Cecily perceived herself as a single person with someone else’s memories tacked on.

It still helped to have someone who knew more about riding the waves of someone else’s memories and, perhaps, in not taking ownership of their mistakes while still learning from them. Mira wasn’t very interested in discussing their mutual past, but she answered some questions that Cecily had about what had actually been going on in the Demon Realm. Melody had been way off base in the abuses she’d imagined her princess was enduring, it turned out.

Cecily still saw Tio, sometimes, when she looked at Randall and it was odd to think that they’d known each other in multiple lives. Melody hadn’t been very close to Tio, but Tio hadn’t been close with anyone. He’d kept himself to himself. Alan and Will were a bit more like their old selves, but Mira had a theory that people grew and changed over the course of their soul’s journey. Maybe Randall had been learning to open up while Cecily had been learning to be braver and more independent. 

(She was a little disappointed to learn that Melody and Tio hadn’t been sweethearts. That didn’t bode well for her secret hopes, but maybe Cecily and Randall would be different. Mira didn’t answer her directly and started to sweat when Cecily asked if Melody had been sweethearts with anyone else, so that was unsettling.)

Mira was more interested in where Cecily had magically learned to fight with a sword and Cecily agreed, that was important. The problem was that she had no idea. She was a decent fighter, if uninspired, swordswoman if she didn’t think too hard about what she was doing, but she hadn’t inherited that knowledge from Melody nor had she learned it in her life as Cecily. That knowledge was just there.

Papa thought she’d gotten just enough mystical knowledge to get her through the coup and to give her a leg up to stand on equal footing with warriors who’d trained from birth. The good news was that she could now train with Vesper and they had a nice regular outing that dragged Vesper away from her desk for a few hours every day. She also had a regular class with Sir Hansford, who taught her things about combat that were more relevant to a paladin.

It was during these almost-happy days where she could see the distant figure of a future that wasn’t overshadowed by the coup they’d just thwarted or the ongoing trials and executions, when she ran into Andrei for the last time. 

He was in the garden complex near Rosepark when Cecily had been on her way back from a session with Sir Hansford that he’d let her friends sit in on. There was talk of recruiting a group of her peers as a small strikeforce under her command and the boys had honestly been the first people she thought of, after her sisters who were both excluded from consideration by either their health or responsibilities. After today’s spar, she liked to think that Sir Hansford agreed. She, Randall, Alan, and Will made a good team. She would have liked to have another sorceress or pure warrior, but she wanted someone she could trust without question and they hadn’t met that person yet. 

They turned a corner, already in an animated discussion about what they’d learned from Sir Hansford, and walked right into Andrei, who was walking with Viola.

Just about the only good thing Cecily could say about encountering her former best friend again was that there was no semi-familiar face hovering over hers. She was just Viola and everything that entailed.

Viola sank back and away from her, sliding half behind Andrei like Cecily was going to attack her or something. All of her bluster from that disastrous family dinner was gone and Cecily hardly recognized her until she realized that this was probably an act for Andrei’s benefit. 

Andrei, meanwhile, had a face like stone. He’d been pelting her with letters for days now that had piled up on her desk of the course of a few scant days. She’d started giving them to the Paladins to open when she realized the contents were escalating in emotion and those emotions were all bad. He’d gone from pleading to demanding to accusing her of every base thing—including seducing him for her own gain and discarding him once she’d accumulated enough benefits. 

Nevermind that she’d never asked him for anything and he’d never listened to the things she did ask him to do (i.e. leaving Mira alone.) 

Eventually, his letters started being redirected to the Crown Princess. The palace steward actually apologized to her for letting the letters through in the first place. Andrei had a history in the Palace Complex that none of them had known about in school and it transcended the stories she’d learned about his monstrous valet. There were no women permitted to serve in the annex building where he lived and it wasn’t by the former Prince Regent’s orders. It was that the Master of Household refused to assign them any after girls kept coming back to the central office with slapped cheeks and sometimes even cuts from thrown cups and vases. The dates mentioned lined up with the valet’s tenure at Andrei’s side so he was probably responsible for most of, but not all of it. Andrei was usually fine around the maids, but his claim of ‘not being in the habit of raising his hand to a woman’ apparently did not extend to servants because he was not above slapping them on the spot if he found them saying things he didn’t like to hear. 

He’d also, apparently, written similar letters to a female classmate during his first year at Breckenridge. Julia and Annette had mentioned to her once that Andrei tried to have a flirtation before she enrolled. Apparently, the girl was Julia’s older cousin and she’d declined his interest flat out and to his face. That year, the Morrowoods were the only family that could stand up to the Coventrys and Cecily supposed he’d been hoping to play on Julia’s cousin’s affections and use her as leverage against Mira. The only problem was that Julia’s cousin was also cousins with Vesper. They were, reportedly, very close and she was meant to enter Vesper’s service when she finished university. Andrei hadn’t taken the rejection well and started drowning her with letters like the ones he’d been sending to Cecily. Hurandel eventually leaned on the Morrowoods to send her to school in another province. 

Apparently, that was right before she met Andrei. 

Everyone in her support staff and family had made it very clear, she had no legal standing to interfere in Hurandel’s trial and every moral reason to keep the Temples separate from it unless she was called on to give testimony. The Temples and the Crown got along well because each tended to their own knitting. If Princess Millica wanted her help then she’d ask for it.

Not to mention, Cecily didn’t actually think Hurandel deserved the mercy Andrei wanted her to plead for. He’d subverted the will of dozens of people and stolen years from some that they would never get back. He’d tried to overthrow a government that worked well for its people and all for his own vanity. He’d had plenty of glory and respect as Regent, he just didn’t want to release any of it back to its rightful owner. He wasn’t, insofar as she could see, sorry and if he had a chance she was certain he would try again. 

When Cecily was a little girl, Mama had once told her that forgiveness was only for people who apologized and made an effort to change. It wasn’t for the people who just wanted you to drop your guard so they could do it again later. The thing you gave those people was called ‘indifference.’ There wasn’t a lot of point in nursing your hatred for someone, but there was a vast difference between releasing your grudges and serving your heart up on a platter for more abuse.

Knowing what she did now about Mama’s marriage, Cecily supposed Mama had a lot of time to think about that sort of thing.

So, when Cecily met Andrei’s gaze it was with indifference in her heart. She could have hated him for the years of damage he did to her sister, to her reputation, and to her confidence. He would deserve it, but she wasn’t about to poison her new happiness with thoughts of him. They would be strangers from now on. After all, the Andrei she’d trusted and had affection for hadn’t really existed, had he? He’d just been a mask that this person would put on sometimes. She didn’t owe a stranger any of her time or a place in her thoughts. 

“Saintess Cecily,” he greeted her with a tension simmering in his voice and body that told her this encounter was going to end badly for everyone. “Would you spare a moment for me? I’d like to speak with you in private.”

She was about to say no when not one, but three bodies got in between them. 

“Keep walking, your highness,” Alan advised him, sounding flat and unfriendly. 

Will didn’t say anything, but he had a reassuring hand on her shoulder that said ‘I’m here, you don’t have to be alone with this.’ The person closest to Andrei, however, was Randall and he got right in the former prince’s face—or was he a former prince? Cecily realized that she didn’t remember where Andrei was in the process of being divested from the royal family. 

“Don’t speak to her,” he said quietly. “Don’t look at her, don’t even think about her. Keep walking and don’t turn back.”

Andrei refocused on Randall and his lips curled in a sneer. “Well, look who grew some gumption,” he replied and that was when Cecily later realized that everything that was to come became a forgone conclusion. 

The duel might even have been inevitable from the moment Andrei spotted her in the garden. Randall had been at her side as often as he could be once outsiders were allowed into the palace complex again, but he’d been a little frustrated because there wasn’t much he could do except weigh in when Cecily wanted advice. He couldn’t punish Sir Rousseau because Adramalak and a cook with typhoid had gotten there first to strip him of his wealth and health. He couldn’t help thwart the coup because it was already over by the time he heard anything was happening. He couldn’t look after her sisters for her because her sisters were terrifying and already being well-looked after.

He wanted badly to fix something for her and then Andrei served himself up on a tray.

Her heart almost stopped in her chest when Andrei went to hit him. Alan and Will were holding her back and, in retrospect, she understood that the last thing they needed was her wading into the fight. At the time, she was less appreciative of their foresight. Even afterwards, she still wanted to claw Andrei’s face up before he could hurt anyone else she loved. She was within seconds of getting Aurora to do it for her when the cavalry arrived. 

Thank heaven Mira showed up when she did. Cecily wasn’t even upset that the reason for timely intervention was because Adramalak had been snooping again. He could just have easily been snooping after Andrei so Cecily decided she was going to forgive him in advance and not ask any questions so he didn't get a chance to annoy her all over again.

It was also kind of funny to see someone else trapped in the lightning chains and forced to kneel like a naughty child. Aurora did not have solutions except hitting things and, going from the conversation between him and Mira, Andrei was technically still a prince when Randall challenged him. His demotion was inevitable, but she was now certain it hadn’t happened yet. Andrei didn’t look nearly worried enough. If Cecily was right then hitting him before the Crown Princess got him to renounce his status could have gotten Randall killed and the Temples implicated in Lese Majeste. 

Politics were so confusing and Cecily was glad that her role, going forward, was just to get rid of curses and fix hurt people. That was so much more straight forward.

Mira, on the other hand, was now a senior Royal. She could hit Andrei as much as she liked even before he accepted his demotion—which she did, right after Andrei cheated to win the duel and then did what he always did when he got caught; picked a fight with his former fiancee. 

Her heart dropped into her shoes when a red miasma flared around Andrei's shoulders and sword arm. She didn't understand what was happening until Randall was already bleeding and then it was hard to focus on anything else when she couldn't tell if his eye was safe. Alan and Will let her go when Randall hit the ground and she scrambled to reach him.

"Get his shoulders," Alan directed Will as he caught Randall's hands as he tried to hold his own cut shut. "Let me have your wrists, Greenwood. Give Cece room to work. We've got you, alright?"

Randall's breaths were short and harsh, but Cece could see both of his eyes open through all the blood. Thank goodness. Andrei had missed his eye. The rest of it was probably just mess. Head wounds bled something fierce. His gaze found hers and reached out to cup his cheek.

"Everything will be alright," she promised and set about making her promise into the truth.

Her healing magic came to her more easily than it ever had. She was starting to understand how different divine mana was from mundane mana. Divine healing was so much less cerebral than the kind she'd learned before. She pictured his beloved face intact in her mind's eye and the magic just sort of made that happen. She could feel it when his pain eased and he sagged into her arms. There was still a bit of a scar left when she was done. Andrei had cut him deep, but Cece thought that the mark made him look dashing.

Well, they could deal with it later if he decided he didn't like it. The important part was that all the important anatomical and neurological connections in his face were safe.

Cecily was too occupied with putting Randall’s face back together to see everything Mira did to Andrei when he went after her in the aftermath of the duel, but what she saw was enough to fill in a gap between her experiences and Melody’s regarding the same person. 

She sometimes had trouble resolving her gentle, loving, and humorous sister with the battlefield titan that Melody had so admired. Now she saw an echo of Princess Alanamira in the wild light of Mira’s gaze as she dumped Andrei into the dirt without appreciable effort and Cecily would have been so more appreciative of it if her idiot sibling wasn’t over there begging for another seizure while she, herself, had her hands full with another patient!

Had she really thought, just a few hours ago, that she could look forward to peaceful happy days from now on? What a pipe dream!

At least Randall never caused her worry like this.

(She had cause to regret that thought a few weeks later when she received word that someone had burnt down her former step father’s house shortly after he’d been confined to a charity ward to recover from his typhoid.)

-Fin | Cecily Side Story 10

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AN:

Andrei’s letter campaigns are modeled off that one romantic relationship we’ve all encountered or heard of where someone will text you in the dead of night when you’re fully asleep and then go off because you didn’t answer right away. Then you wake up to 50+ text messages of 2 AM meltdown that starts with ‘hey u up?’ and ends with the most abusive crap you’ve ever read in your life. You would have probably only just started talking to this person.