Chapter 918: Home

The Emperor wisely did not object. He did, however, announce his intention to send an Imperial expedition into the Dark Continent.

Several thousand soldiers would travel with scholars, surveyors, mages, and a full supply corps. Their stated goals were simple: explore the region, create maps, identify resources, and determine whether additional territory could be claimed now that Sloth no longer blocked the eastern passage.

Ludwig read the letter twice before lowering it and looking toward Celine. "Of course he wants to send an army. The moment an immortal monster stops preventing people from entering an unexplored death continent, your Emperor decides he should own part of it."

Celine continued reviewing another stack of territorial reports. "He is an Emperor. Expansion is part of the position."

"That isn’t a defense."

"It wasn’t intended as one. It is merely the explanation."

Ludwig sighed and glanced back at the letter. "He wants me to inform Kaiser before the expedition crosses the mountains. That’s probably the first sensible part of the plan."

He sent the message and received Kaiser’s response several hours later. The lich stated that the expedition could explore anything beyond his claimed perimeter.

Ludwig forwarded the answer to the Emperor and added one sentence of his own: Do not bother the Lich.

The Emperor did not reply, which Ludwig took as a sign that he understood. The man was unlikely to antagonize Kaiser anyway. The same lich had fought for the Empire, helped save its people, and directly contributed to freeing the Emperor’s daughter from the curse that trapped her in endless sleep.

There were easier methods of political suicide.

Bastos still possessed problems of its own, although none provided the excitement Ludwig’s restless mind wanted. The corruption had retreated dramatically around the manor and the restored settlement, but the land farther away remained scarred.

Some regions still carried red traces through the soil. Certain trees had been felled only for their roots to produce more deformed growth, while old pools of stagnant water occasionally reflected a red moon that no longer hung above them. Animals avoided entire stretches of the forest.

The Moonflayed King’s influence had remained in Bastos for centuries. It would not disappear simply because Ludwig wanted better scenery.

Misty had taken the lingering corruption as a personal insult. After spending several days examining its borders, she contacted Solania and demanded an update regarding the promised support.

A proper cleansing force was scheduled to arrive the following morning. Priests trained in purification would come with holy mages and enough paladins to protect them while they worked. If everything proceeded well, they could begin pushing the remaining corruption out of Bastos piece by piece.

That meant Ludwig had absolutely nothing to do that night.

He stood upon the manor’s upper porch with both hands resting against the stone railing. The air was cool without becoming cold, and a gentle wind moved through the garden below. Moonlight rested upon the restored fountain, while scattered lights dotted the streets of the growing settlement farther away.

Lanterns, windows, and a handful of magical lamps shone among the repaired buildings. There were not many, especially compared to what Bastos had once been.

Celine had described the old Marquisate to him. Seven centuries earlier, the streets remained alive deep into the night as merchants and travelers from distant kingdoms passed through. Humans, dwarves, elves, and beastkin used Bastos as a stopping point before continuing farther into the Empire.

Now only scattered lights remained where thousands once burned. They were still lights, and that mattered.

Ludwig watched one of the distant doors open. Someone stepped outside, spoke to a person farther down the street, and disappeared inside again.

It was painfully normal.

He looked toward the moon and asked, "How do people do this every day?"

No answer came, but he remained at the railing anyway. A knock sounded behind him several moments later.

The sound was strange enough to make him glance over his shoulder. His room connected directly to the porch, and most of the manor’s residents had learned that Ludwig did not care about formalities.

Another knock followed.

He crossed the room and opened the door. Celine stood outside without armor, which caught his attention before anything else.

She wore light, simple clothes suited to a quiet evening. A bottle rested in one hand and two cups in the other.

She lifted them slightly. "May I come in?"

Ludwig looked past her before returning his attention to her face. "This is your house. You can enter any room you want."

"That wasn’t what I asked."

"You don’t need my permission."

"Ludwig, you could simply say yes."

He stepped aside. "Yes, you may come in."

Celine walked past him with a small smile. "See? That was much easier."

She laughed softly as they returned to the porch. Celine placed the bottle upon a small table between two chairs, and Ludwig inspected it before sitting.

"Did you steal the good wine?"

"No, because the good wine has apparently become part of the Bastos historical collection. Very famous for killing people."

Ludwig looked at her. "I use that for healing though..."

"That wine belongs to the trash, the steward threatened to burn down the whole cellar."

"That was wine made by your father."

"Yes, that’s why I threatened him back with drinking his brain with a straw if he ever dared do that."

Ludwig smiled. Though the wine down in the cellars of the manor was nothing but poison and at the same time incredibly lethal and painful to drink, it was her last memory of Dante Bastos.

Celine opened the bottle and filled both cups. The wine was not bad, merely less valuable than whatever had survived seven hundred years inside the Bastos cellar. In emotional value that is.

For a while, neither of them spoke. Ludwig discovered that silence felt different when another person willingly shared it with him. It became less empty.

Celine leaned back and let her eyes travel across the garden. "I never thought I would see this place again. For a long time, I stopped allowing myself to imagine it."

Ludwig glanced toward her and waited.

"When I was first captured, I thought about home constantly," she continued. "You tell yourself that you’ll return, and you imagine every detail so often that it almost feels real."

Her thumb moved slowly along the rim of her cup. "I remembered the entrance, the garden, my room, and what I intended to say when I saw everyone again. I even imagined Van Dijk being angry because I disappeared."

"He probably was."

"Oh, he absolutely was," Celine said with a faint smile. The expression remained for a moment before fading. "But years pass, followed by decades, and eventually imagining home becomes harder than remembering it."

Her gaze remained upon the garden. "You start losing details. The exact sound of someone’s voice, which paintings hung in which hallway, what flowers grew beside the fountain, and what the cooks prepared during winter all become less certain."

Her fingers tightened slightly around the cup. "Then you realize the people you’re imagining probably aren’t waiting anymore."

Ludwig lowered his gaze toward his wine. Celine had remained imprisoned for centuries, long enough to return to a world that continued without her.

House Bastos had fallen, her family was gone, and the home she remembered became a corrupted ruin. Van Dijk remained, but even their reunion carried centuries of separation neither could erase.

"I think I stopped believing there was anything left to return to," Celine said. She offered a small shrug when Ludwig looked at her. "It was easier than continuing to want something that probably no longer existed."

Ludwig understood more than she likely realized. "Stopping yourself from wanting it meant there was less to lose."

"Yes. Then somehow I ended up sitting here again."

Voices traveled faintly from the settlement, followed by distant laughter. Celine listened and smiled.

"There are people inside those houses," she said.

"Most of them used to be goblins."

"That doesn’t make them less human."

"I know. One of them argued with you for twenty minutes yesterday about lumber prices, which arguably makes him more human than most humans."

Celine laughed before looking back toward the manor. "The fountain works, the kitchens are open, and the western rooms have been restored. Even the windows are right now."

"The food is becoming a problem," Ludwig said. "Having access to a working kitchen at all hours is dangerous."

"You eat everything they make."

"I didn’t say the food was bad. The problem is that I can eat constantly without gaining weight, which means there are no consequences. I don’t eat out of hunger, more out of boredom."

Celine shook her head, though her attention had already drifted toward the smaller garden beyond the fountain. "My garden is coming back."

Ludwig followed her gaze. The place where she stopped on their first day had changed considerably. Its old fountain had been repaired, and young flowers now surrounded it.

The arrangement was not an exact recreation of what existed centuries earlier. Celine had made sure of that. She wanted something familiar rather than an imitation pretending nothing had changed.

"I missed this place," she admitted.

"Then it’s good that we came back."

Celine glanced toward him. "Thank you."

Ludwig frowned. "For what?"

"For bringing me home."