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The stone of the great Barbatos statue is chill against Kaeya's back. He's sitting at its feet, slumped against it. The rain is still pouring down, soaking his hair and clothes and running in cold rivulets down his back and face. It should leave him shivering. Instead, the chill soothes his burns and bruises, and the rain washes the blood from his wounds until it's running clean over his skin.
Dawn is still an hour or so away, only the faintest glow lighting the eastern horizon just yet. The cathedral's heavy doors are closed. Kaeya could knock and be answered--there's always someone on watch, all night through, for exactly that reason--but he can't bring himself to do it. As soon as he submits himself to the care of the Church, he'll be caught up in a web of questions and concern. Why is he hurt? What happened?
Kaeya can't even answer that for himself yet. He's not ready to invent answers for other people.
"Was this a joke?" he asks, tilting his head back to look up at the statue overhead, heedless of the rain pattering against his face. "Giving me a Vision? At that moment? I'm your enemy, you know. I'm here to serve as a weapon against your people. Diluc could have finished me last night and put down a threat to your precious city. And instead... this?"
He jingles his Vision, dangling from his upheld hand. A mixed message in so many ways. Visions are the blessings of the gods, but this is a Cryo Vision, the element of Barbatos' most dangerous rival. Was it from Barbatos at all? Is the Tsaritsa playing a long game, willing to let Kaenri'ah's plot proceed if it will weaken the City of Freedom for her own ends? If so, the joke's on her. Kaeya's godless people have no love for any archon.
Barbatos is silent. The statue stands tall and unmoving, head slightly bowed, hands cupped, just as it always has. Kaeya stares up into the rain for a while longer, waiting for anything, even a breeze. But the rain continues to fall, the chill seeping deeper and deeper into him. It feels strangely comforting, now, as if his new power over ice turns the cold from foe into companion.
Eventually the rain goes from a patter to a pitter, and then to a faint mist. At last, the eastern sky glowing pink and gold with sunrise, a wind sweeps through to blow the mist away. Beyond the statue, the cathedral doors creak open, nuns beginning to emerge for morning hymns. Kaeya buries his new Vision deep in a pocket. Then he rises, rearranges his wet clothes and hair so he won't look quite so bedraggled, and heads towards the cathedral. Sister Barbara shouldn't be too hard to find.
***
Barbara he could have bullied into letting him quietly come and go, but Sister Rosaria is more difficult to handle. She stands there with her arms crossed while Barbara fusses over his injuries, and his sodden state, and the chill she's afraid he's taken. He doesn't think Rosaria believes a word about the story he spins them of back-alley thugs and a shattered lantern, though she doesn't bother to do more about it than stare at him contemptuously. At least Barbara swallows it without a flicker of doubt.
Somehow, Kaeya ends up bundled into fresh clothes borrowed from one of the priests, eating a bowl of hot porridge from the cathedral kitchens. Barbara keeps pressing a hand to his forehead or his wrist, over and over, and exclaiming at how chilled he feels. He suspects it's his Vision at work--Diluc has run abnormally hot the whole time Kaeya's known him--but he can't reveal its existence without much more explanation.
It's clear that Barbara would like to keep him longer. Once he's finished the porridge, though, Rosaria finally takes pity on him. Or, more likely, decides she has better things to do than play enforcer.
"Sir Kaeya has at least two other beds in this city he can use," she tells Barbara. "Write him off sick for the day and send it to the Ordo so he can't go back to work from here. If he decides to be an idiot instead of resting, that's on his own head."
Barbara pouts at that, but doesn't dare argue. "You should sleep, Sir Kaeya. You need to protect your health, especially after... especially when you're under so much stress."
"I'll keep that in mind," Kaeya tells her, winking as if to seal a promise.
Not that he actually intends to pay her advice any attention. Kaeya has too much damage control to take care of to waste any time in bed.
"Your father's body is in the room behind the grand hall," Rosaria adds as he rises from his chair, without an inch of sympathy or pity. The flat, factual delivery is all that keeps him from flinching. "They'll open it this up for public viewing, if Sir Diluc doesn't say otherwise. So if you want to pay your respects in private, you want to do it now."
Kaeya swallows a couple of times, to make it less noticeable that his voice stays steady. "Good to know."
"Hmmph." Rosaria turns away, stalking towards the far door of the infirmary without another word.
He can see Barbara is right on the edge of saying something, her eyes wide and sad. Before she can actually voice her sympathies, Kaeya turns away, letting the infirmary door close behind him to cut her off.
The back room is the usual venue for pre-funeral viewings, a custom of the well-known and wealthy of Mondstadt. Crepus Ragnvindr was more the latter than the former. All his efforts for the city took place in the background, obscured by his disdain for self-aggrandizement. And, of course, because the one thing he truly wanted to be known for was always beyond his grasp. Kaeya wonders if he'd have been happier if he had been more open, more flamboyant, with his charitable endeavors, and simply accepted the public acclaim for them instead of dreaming always of the Knights. It's too late now to find out.
If Kaeya didn't know any better, he would think his adopted father was only sleeping, his eyes closed and his face relaxed and solemn as if in repose. The Church, as always, has done an excellent job of readying the corpse. It's not their fault that Kaeya, staring down at Father, can still see the blood that clung to his skin and clothes even under the drumming rain.
They've hidden the neat slash across his throat with a high collar and some lace. Kaeya's own report describes that as a claw-swipe from Ursa. As far as he know, nobody's investigated or contradicted that. After all, he was the senior knight on the scene, after Diluc, and there's no reason for his word to be in doubt. Few of the priests who prepared the body would know to identify the wound as anything else.
His throat is still tight, but no matter how long Kaeya stares at the body, no tears come. Just like yesterday. His mind, on the other hand, is awhirl with questions. The first rush of surprise has passed, leaving him trying to analyze what he saw, thinking over Father's dealings and connections to try and determine where the Fatui device might have come from, and running through what little the survivors of the attack had said to figure out how it had been used. Even when he wants to open himself to feeling, he can't stop his thoughts from ticking too noisily away.
Which is how Jean finds him, leaning against Father's coffin, staring into the middle distance, turning his Vision over and over in his hand. He's lucky enough to be canted away from her when she enters the room. Hearing the loud click of her bootheels on the stone, he stuffs the Vision hastily back into his pocket again before she can catch sight of it. She's the last person he wants to confess its origin to.
"Sir Kaeya?" she says, her voice soft and careful. "I'm sorry to disturb you. Has Diluc been here?"
Of course that's her first question. Kaeya closes his eye, briefly, with a rueful smile for the empty air. Then he puts on a friendlier expression and turns to face her.
"I haven't seen Diluc since last night, I'm afraid."
From the concern and sympathy on her face, she doesn't know yet what's happened between them. Diluc will pour out the truth of Kaeya's betrayal soon enough, and then she won't look at him so gently, like she's afraid of brushing against a wound. For now, though, she still thinks he's her friend. He can see just from her expression that she regrets having to ask him.
"Yes, I saw Barbara had written you off for an injury. She said you ran into thugs last night. Was that on the way home? Or did you go out?"
Kaeya shrugs, pretending nonchalance, knowing she'll see through it and misread what it's intended as a shield against. "I couldn't stay in the mansion last night, so I went out and wandered around a bit."
He can almost laugh at the fact that his statement is, in once sense, perfectly true. He couldn't stay when Diluc had thrown him out, after all, and he'd wandered most of the night until he fetched up at the statue. His birth father told him long ago that the best lies were mostly truth, but he'd never told Kaeya that the truth is usually the most entertaining kind of lie to tell. Right now, though, he can't quite bring himself to be amused.
"I understand." Jean comes a bit closer, and he sees one hand rise, as if she's going to reach out to him, before she thinks better of it and drops her arm. "And then you got hurt, and came here- oh! So you don't know yet."
That seems to occur to her all of a sudden, as a shock, and the look on her face is enough to send a matching bolt of alarm down Kaeya's spine.
"Don't know what?"
"Sir Diluc quit the Knights this morning," Jean says. "He came in to meet with Inspector Eroch, since he hadn't delivered his report yesterday, given... everything. I don't know exactly what happened. I wasn't in the room. But he stormed out without his uniform jacket or his Vision, in an utter fury. I tried to follow him, and he turned around and shouted at me. The look on his face, Kaeya, the hatred in his voice for the Knights...."
She is, Kaeya realizes, deeply upset. Jean has always had far more composure than either he or Diluc, even as children. Her mother's training was stern, and started very young indeed. Anyone who hadn't known her for years wouldn't be able to tell. But she'd forgotten herself enough to call him simply by his name, without the courtesy of his title, which she's been so very mindful about since she was elevated to captain. The knuckles of her right hand are white where she grips the hilt of her sword, grasping it for comfort rather than for use. And her lips are tight with the effort of not revealing too much emotion. She wouldn't think it was proper to show it, and oblige him to comfort her, when he's suffered such a great loss.
But Kaeya knows how much she admires and looks up to Diluc. For him to rebuff her would have been a serious blow, and her identity is so tied up with being a Knight of Favonius that a rebuff of the Ordo would feel just as deeply personal.
Kaeya has no idea why Diluc would do such a thing. The first thought that skitters across his mind is far too hopeful; Diluc wouldn't resign his post simply to avoid passing on what Kaeya had revealed. No, whatever took place, it likely has little to do with Kaeya. Except that last night might have left Diluc in a ready state for rage.
"You don't have any idea why? At all?"
"No." Jean shakes her head. "I asked the Inspector afterwards, but he told me that he would have to wait until the Grand Master returned from his pilgrimage to Wolvendom and discuss the situation with him before he revealed the details of a private meeting to anyone. Which is the proper way to go about things, of course."
"But you think if you knew now, you might be able to talk Diluc around," Kaeya finishes for her. "A resignation isn't official until the Grand Master receives it, right?"
It's a good plan. Or it would be, if Kaeya thought Diluc could be talked around. But he never can be, in a temper, and he knows that Jean is just aware of that as he is. She simply has more hope.
"You could ask him," Jean says, suddenly, that unwarranted hope starting to shine in her eyes. "He wasn't at the Ragnvindr mansion, so he must have gone back to the Dawn Winery. I don't know if he would accept an audience from me, but you can go to him and find out what happened. He'll always talk to you."
Kaeya's stomach sinks, and he swallows back a sour taste in the back of his throat. This is a pressure he can't figure out how to evade. Not now, on the heels of loss and guilt and conflict and a long and sleepless night. He can't do what Jean's asking, and he can't refuse without a good reason. She'll know something's wrong anyway if he tries.
"I'm not the best person for that mission," Kaeya tells her, smiling wryly. "Not right now, if ever. We fought rather dramatically last night."
Jean stares at him in astonishment. "What could the two of you have fought about?"
"Family matters," Kaeya says, letting the smile slip away again. Jean won't pry, if he makes it clear this isn't a matter he cares to discuss. And then, in a rush of the same unwise honesty he's already let run roughshod over his life, "It was my fault. I chose the worst possible time to say some provocatory things. I can't be certain it didn't feed into whatever happened this morning."
A dozen questions cross over Jean's face. He can see them rising, then vanishing, as she narrows it down to the most obvious conclusion. A fight over family matters, last night, after that long horrible day--surely it was about those same events. Which is true, but not in the way he knows she'll think.
"Kaeya... you do know it's not your fault that you couldn't reach them in time, don't you? With Ursa the Drake, you might only have gotten killed yourself if you had. And what happened isn't Diluc's fault, either. Not even Grand Master Varka could take on a dragon by himself. He's lucky that he's still alive."
The nasty temptation to pull Father's collar down and show her the line across his throat flashes through Kaeya's mind. Jean knows what the slice of a sword looks like. But he's already committed to that lie, did so when he sat down and wrote it into his report. His fight with Diluc doesn't change that. And Kaeya, of all people, can't say that the choice Diluc made was wrong. Any child of godless Khaenri'ah knows that sometimes a mercy-stroke is the kindest thing you can give to those you love.
Was that what he'd really hoped for when he revealed himself? He'd seen Diluc give his father peace, had it proven that his brother was capable of striking such a blow. And while seeing Father dead should have eased Kaeya's inner turmoil, ended the question of his divided loyalties by putting an end to one of the men he couldn't choose between, he'd known in that moment that the true division wasn't between father and father, but between nation and nation. What simpler resolution is there than to cut the knot? Dead, he doesn't have to bear the burden of that choice.
Instead he's alive, thanks to Barbatos, or the Tsaritsa, or whatever other cruel archon decided it would be a grand joke on the world to give a godless man from a godless land their protection. He could still foil that joke, Kaeya thinks, show them what he thinks of their awful humor. But if he'd had the courage to solve the problem with his own hand, he wouldn't have needed to confess to Diluc.
He's too tired to face this dilemma any longer. Not today. So Kaeya just smiles at Jean again, making sure it's sad, keeping the wild look he knows he's inching towards out of his eye.
"I know. Neither of us were at fault."
She relaxes and smiles sadly back. "I'm sure Diluc knows, too. He may just need some time to come to his senses. I'll find him myself-"
"Don't," Kaeya says, so quick to interrupt her that he can't keep his voice from cracking. "It was quite an argument, Jean. He threw me out. And I can't say I didn't give him plenty of reason for it. I plan to give him space, and I think you should too."
"He threw you out?" Jean is clearly wondering again, not that he can blame her. But she moves on before he's forced to dredge up another deflection. "I'm sure that he regrets that already. But if you think he needs time, I'll trust your judgement. All the same, someone has to talk to him before the Grand Master returns."
Jean is determined about that, then. It's no surprise; she's never been one to give up on anything she thinks she might be able to set right. Kaeya sighs, then draws his shoulders straight.
"I'll go to the Dawn Winery," he tells her. "I still don't think I should talk to him myself, but I can carry a message to the servants there, and find out his temper. They'll let Diluc know you want to talk to him, and if he's willing, they can pass a letter back along to you."
Probably Diluc will want to talk to Jean in person, if only to make sure she knows that his enmity isn't personal. Kaeya will make a point of how hurt she is when he talks to the servants. She visited enough in their youth that they know her, and will care. So will Diluc. He respects Jean more than he does anyone else in the Knights, even the Grand Master, and she's his closest friend after Kaeya. His closest friend at all, now.
Her smile grows warmer, more relief showing, though there's still enough sympathy in it to stir guilt in his gut. "Thank you, Kaeya. I'll write a letter and leave it in my office, but I'll let you be alone for now."
She pauses to look towards Father, putting one hand to her heart, and he sees her lips move in a prayer. Then she turns and walks away, bootheels ringing on the stone floor, until the door closes behind her and muffles them into silence.
Kaeya leans over the coffin one last time. He's not sure he could voice a prayer that wouldn't turn into ash inside his mouth. But he bows to his adopted father, simple and sincere.
"Thank you," he says quietly, not sure what he's thanking the man for--whether it's for the kindness he'd shown in life, or for the revelations that his death had brought. Then he heads out of the cathedral, leaving the silent peace of the dead behind.
***
When Kaeya arrives, late that afternoon, the Dawn Winery is in open mourning. Black cloth drapes the stone pillars of the gate and falls in billowing curtains to frame the sign beside them. More dark streamers hang from the trellises closest to the road winding up to the manor.
The servants startle when they see him--the warehouse manager frowning, several farmers drawing close together and murmuring to themselves, a couple of maids breaking off their gossip to flutter away into the manor. Which means that Diluc has told at least some of the staff something of the break between them.
Jean's letter in his breast pocket feels like a shield over his heart, a formal excuse for his arrival.
Kaeya is less than halfway across the courtyard towards the manor door when someone steps out of it to meet him. And stands in his path to stop him, which he'd more or less expected from the maids' reactions.
He'd secretly hoped for Diluc, but he's not surprised to see it's Elzer. It does sting, though, when he holds up a hand and shakes his head and says, soft and almost abashed, "I'm sorry, Sir Kaeya."
It's neither the respectful 'Master' nor the familiar simple 'Kaeya,' and Elzer winces like it hurts him to say it. It can't hurt him more than the band that settles around Kaeya's lungs when he hears it, clenching like a fist. Any hope that Diluc might have reconsidered in the light of morning dies then and there.
"By Master Diluc's orders, you are no longer welcome in the Dawn Winery. You are granted one hour to collect any items you may wish to keep from the premises, and a cart will be loaned to you if you need it. Once you have finished that, though, you are bidden not to return to the Winery, nor to any other of the Ragnvindr properties, except for a similar hour in the mansion in town."
Elzer speaks softly, his gaze touching on the farmers still staring their way, though he must be aware that they already know. Gossip spreads fast here. Particularly so if it involves the Ragnvindr clan, upon whose whims and dealings the fortunes of all those beholden to them depend. Still, it's Elzer's nature to try and preserve Kaeya's dignity. Such as it is.
Breath rattling back into his chest like a cold wind, Kaeya finds his voice. "How gracious of him. But I'm here on another errand. Jean sent me with a message for him. A personal one. If I give it to you, can you pass it along? I won't insult him with my presence, but Jean deserves an answer."
'Personal' is stretching it for this missive, Kaeya knows, but it's the easiest way to undermine any refusal. An appeal to the friendship that Diluc and Jean have always shared can't be turned away by an intermediary, and the lack of title for her leans even further on that personal bond.
"I am sorry, Sir Kaeya," Elzer says again, open in his pain and regret. "Master Diluc is no longer at the Winery. He departed this morning, bound for Liyue."
"Liyue? Before Father's even had his funeral? What's he doing there that's more important?"
"I was not privileged with the details, but he told Adelinde and I that he didn't intend to allow the trail to get cold regarding Master Crepus' death. He seems to believe that the Knights will not be adequate to investigating it, and is doing so himself instead."
Himself. Without Kaeya. That shouldn't be a surprise, either, but it still hits Kaeya right in the gut, leaves him breathless again and as stunned as if Elzer had actually punched him. Never before has he been cut out of any mission Diluc chose to take on--he had always been the first one his brother spoke to, the one he trusted to arrange logistics, the very first person Diluc would share all his information with, to see if Kaeya could pick out the details that would form a lead. This time, he doesn't even know what scrap of suspicion might have pointed Diluc towards Liyue.
Kaeya's first impulse, trained by years of following in Diluc's shadow, is to start right after him. He'll have to stop for the night eventually, and that will give Kaeya time to catch up. But his next thought is of how stupid that would be. Diluc doesn't want Kaeya at his heels anymore.
Coming here so soon after their fight was a mistake. Best to carry out his mission and withdraw. Kaeya fumbles with his breast pocket, trying to pretend his hands aren't shaking as he draws out the letter within. The envelope is still sealed, a simple 'Diluc' written on it in Jean's careful hand. Nothing, at his advice, to suggest that she's writing either about the Knights or as one.
He's even more sure now that was the right call. Not that it matters anymore.
"You must have some way of passing messages to him," Kaeya says anyway. "I know the Winery has contacts in Liyue Harbor. Can you make sure this is sent along?"
"I'll do my best," Elzer says. He takes the letter and pretends not to notice the tremor in Kaeya's fingers. "I would advise that you take you things from the manor today, Sir Kaeya. I don't know when Master Diluc will return, and I can't promise that he'll permit you back on the premises if it hasn't already been handled."
Elzer looks so sorry to say it that it makes Kaeya want to throw the consideration right back in his face. But it's not his fault, and he doesn't deserve Kaeya's anger. It's not even Diluc's fault, not really. Kaeya had known last night what to expect when he knocked on Diluc's door. He only has his own honesty to blame.
Summoning every ounce of self-control he has, he nods in reply. "Thank you, Elzer."
It gives him a petty little flare of pleasure to see Elzer wince again at what he clearly feels is undeserved gratitude. Turning his back on that wince, he heads into the manor, not bothering to check the time. He won't need a full hour for this.
***
There's very little in the manor that Kaeya wants, at the end of it. Nothing that won't fit into a chest in the Ordo barracks, which rules out plenty of things from the beginning. No gifts, either, ruling out another whole swathe of trinkets: dozens of unthinking kindnesses from Diluc and Father that Kaeya doesn't have any right to cling to.
He mechanically gathers together a few things that he'd bought for himself, clothing and jewelry and some other little luxuries. For a long moment he regards a set of colorful glass figurines that he'd purchased in celebration the very first time the Knights had given him his pay. They're too fragile to pack and store easily, and they'd take up far too much room in the chest he's mentally fitting all his earthly possessions into.
Leaving them for Diluc to keep, though, feels unbearable. If he's to be cut out from this household, he doesn't want to leave anything of his behind for their pleasure or benefit. The unfairness of it wells up vast and bubbling in his chest, a target for all the anger that Diluc's flight has roused.
How dare he turn and run? Leave Jean wounded and confused, leave Father cold and yet unburied? Leave the Knights, leave the Winery, leave Kaeya behind without any chance to apologize and make amends? Leave him still alive, at Mondstadt's throat, with his loyalties undecided?
If Diluc isn't here to stop him or aid him, then the choice is back in Kaeya's hands alone. He has to decide by himself what he's going to do, whose favor he'll act in when the moment comes. It's perhaps the best revenge Diluc could have taken, abandoning Kaeya to the weight of his own conscience. Kaeya can't help but hate him a little for it.
Kaeya draws his sword, gathers all that hurt and hatred, and throws it into the sweep of his blade along the shelf. The glass figures cascade downward, hitting the ground with a long ringing clash, shattering and fragmenting further against each other after they strike the floor. Kaeya deliberately steps on a few that mostly survived the impact, grinding them down into shards. Then he sheathes his sword and turns to leave the room that's his no longer.
When he opens the door, he sees Adelinde on the other side, her eyes wide and worried. Kaeya takes a step back at the same time she does, trying to master his expression and flush the rage out of his face.
"Master Kaeya, is everything all-" She claps a hand to her mouth before she can finish asking. Realizing, of course, that everything isn't all right.
Shame rushes hot through Kaeya, and he can feel it burning on his cheeks. It isn't Diluc who will have to deal with the mess he's made.
"I'm afraid I broke some glass in there. My apologies to the maids."
Composure recovered, Adelinde lowers her hands again, clasping them in front of her. "It's no trouble."
The sorrowful look in her eyes is more than Kaeya can bear. He pushes past her quickly, ducking his head and lifting the small bag of things worth keeping onto his shoulder. Hopefully she won't have too much trouble disposing of everything he's left behind.
Downstairs, Elzer is waiting. He's commandeered the standing desk that their tutor used to give them lessons from, and moved it close to the front window. It's a good spot, one where he can see much of the front side of the winery and everyone passing in and out of the manor. Kaeya walks over to it with a thought working its way up from the back of his mind.
"Master Crepus' funeral," he says, careful not to embarrass himself by calling him 'Father' again. "I assume the arrangements haven't been left to me?"
"No," Elzer says, and that pained, regretful look flashes across his face. "Rather than a public funeral in Mondstadt, Master Diluc has left instructions that his body be brought back to the Dawn Winery, and the burial be carried out here. He had some strong words about the usual politics of a great man's funeral."
Denying the idle rich of Mondstadt the chance for a social occasion at Ragnvindr expense. Kaeya would approve of that, except that if it's at the Dawn Winery, and he's banned from the premises--it's another thing that shouldn't surprise him, and yet. He tries not to let the clench of his stomach show on his face.
Elzer must see something of it, though. "He had no specific instructions for the ceremony itself, only that it must be here. Given the population of the Dawn Winery, it seems wisest to hold it outdoors. I was considering the western green, near the woods, in case any mourners wished for privacy. Or if someone wished to attend without being seen."
He meets Kaeya's eye and holds it, his face soft with sympathy but his eyes keen and cunning. It's an offer. An insulting one, to let Kaeya lurk in the woods and sneak his way into his own father's funeral. Kaeya feels no guilt at jerking his gaze away.
"Make whatever arrangements you want, if that's what you've been charged with. It isn't my business anymore."
Before Elzer can answer, Kaeya spins on his heel and walks out of the manor. He hesitates for just a moment with the door open, the need not to show his feelings warring with the angry hurt his destructive moment failed to relieve. Finally he closes the door gently and softly behind him, turning the knob so that the latch goes home with the quietest of clicks.
Half a shipment of wine is stacked at the front of the courtyard, the crates still open. Kaeya detours that way as he heads for the gate. Elzer did tell him to take anything he wished to keep.
***
Every child at the winery has surreptitiously sampled its offerings now and then, so despite his age, Kaeya already knows dandelion wine is too sweet and bubbly for his tastes. It had, however, been the only thing in the crate. He'd impulsively taken two bottles, meaning to measure one out along the road and maybe hide the other somewhere in Mondstadt. The walk is long, though, and he gets thirsty. By the time the first bottle is gone, starting on the second seems reasonable enough.
He is very aware that he's drunk. It doesn't feel all that bad, just a blur in his vision and a growing haze over his thoughts. He remembers Father telling him and Diluc, in gentle warning, that no one feels as drunk as they actually are. But the haze is pleasant, blunting the bruises that the day's events have left invisible upon him.
Flushed with wine, Kaeya pays no heed to his surroundings. On some level he knows better, knows the route is dangerous and more so at night, but the haze also keeps that from feeling at all important. He's floating a little, stumbling along the road, and he's well out of the gorge. That's the riskiest stretch, all broken ground to twist an ankle on and nooks and crannies for monsters to hide in, so once he's out of there, it seems to matter even less. He is armed, after all.
The first arrow takes him by surprise. It whistles over his shoulder with less than an inch of clearance, leaving a chill in the air as it passes. He turns, stumbling, to face his attackers. Hilichurls, a handful of them, three with clubs and two with crossbows. And a huge lumbering figure with an axe, following behind.
Kaeya draws his sword and falls into a defensive stance, ducking under the second arrow. Then the three with clubs rush at him, and he's caught up in the practiced movements of attack and defense, lancing out with his blade to pierce vulnerable spots and then dodging away from answering blows. Even this drunk, he can handle a few hilichurls. He's been drilling in this dance for years.
One hilichurl drops, then another. Kaeya can feel his blood pounding in his ears. The floating feeling is growing stronger, filling him with elation. He feels very nearly invulnerable, darting forward to pierce the heart of the third.
Something slams into him from the side, jolting him so hard that he and his sword go flying in opposite directions. Kaeya goes rolling down the slope, away from the road. He comes to a halt in the shallows of the lake, his breath knocked out of him.
Rolling onto his back, he sees the mitachurl come to a halt a few heavy steps above the waterline, its charge chugging to an end. It wrenches a Pyro slime from the ground and smashes it against its axe. The axeblade glows darkly red, and the mitachurl chuckles, low and ominous. Kaeya freezes at the sight, too-recent memories roused by the sight of red-hot metal in the dark.
While he's still motionless, too much of his head still stuck in last night instead of this one, the mitachurl charges him again. Its blade spins in a deadly, flaming circle, and Kaeya rolls onto his feet and is immediately sideswiped by the edge of it. He hits the water again, his whole body shaken by the burst of the Vaporize. The mitachurl turns towards him, weapon raised high. He sees the flaming axe descend.
It's almost funny, knowing that a monster is about to accomplish what Diluc couldn't. But Kaeya isn't laughing. Fear washes through him, a chill piercing to the bone. Cold radiates out from his left hip to permeate the half-inch of water he's lying in. Whatever he'd sought last night, it's no longer tempting. Too late, eye wide open, he realizes that he doesn't want to die.
As if summoned by that realization, a blade comes flashing through the air to deflect the axe's flaming arc. The axe embeds itself in the mud inches from Kaeya, close enough that he can feel the heat rolling off it, muffling his hidden Vision's chill.
The mitachurl bellows in anger and yanks its axe from the ground, stepping back to wind up for another attack. Jean claims the space that its regrouping creates between it and Kaeya, both feet planted firmly in the shallows. She's brilliant in the dark, the moonlight reflecting off her blade, illuminating the white and gold of her clothing, shining through the high breeze-caught ribbon of her ponytail. Looking at her makes Kaeya's chest hurt.
"Sir Kaeya," she shouts, without looking back at him. Her gaze is only for the mitachurl in front of her. "Are you all right?"
"I've been better," Kaeya tells her.
The too-frank rawness of those words is lost in his slurring voice and her own focus on the fight. He pushes himself onto his knees, then back to his feet, casting about in the dark for his rapier. It flew more eastward, he thinks, maybe to the north.
He scrambles along the shoreline for a moment, leaving Jean and the mitachurl exchanging blows behind him, and becomes more and more sure it isn't there. Finding it seems all-important, the only thing he can cling to with the haze over his mind. He can't let Jean fight his battle all alone.
Looking up towards the hill, he sees something that chills his blood enough to cut through that fuzzy urgency. Both of the archers are still up, both aiming pale-blue bolts. As one, they let the Cryo arrows fly.
"Jean!" Kaeya calls, turning back towards her. Too slow, too stumbling, his mind too mazed. She throws herself sideways, away from one bolt, and is caught square in the chest by the other.
She's frozen solid in mid-leap, and the mitachurl charges. A hideous grin curls its lip, and the bestial chuckle rings again from deep within its chest. Even if Kaeya had found his rapier, he can't make it to her side in time.
Fear freezes his breath and wraps chill tendrils tight around his heart. Jean's the only person he has left.
His Vision is pulsing still at his left side, freezing his wet clothes until they crack when he moves. He reaches down into his pocket and fishes it out. Gripping it tight, he swings his hand around, thrusting it out in front of him like a talisman.
Ice sprays out from it, a barrage of bitter cold that catches on the water soaking the mitachurl's fur. Its chuckle turns into a snarl of protest as the ice forms around it, caging it in place with its axe halfway through a deadly swing.
A moment later, Jean bursts forcefully from her own Cryo prison, sheets of ice flaking off her as she shakes the cold away. She doesn't pause to question the situation, simply lunges forward, her blade sinking deep into the mitachurl's gut. When she jerks it upward, the ice shatters, spears of it sinking deep into the mitachurl's furry hide. The monster vanishes in a puff of black smoke.
On the hill above, the hilichurl archers take aim again, but Jean is too quick for them. She goes flying up the hill, sword swinging in another graceful arc. First one, then the other falls under her unwavering assault.
Now Jean turns back to look at Kaeya, stumbling up the slope behind her. Her gaze sweeps over him in what's clearly a search for injuries, but he guesses all she'll be able to see is mud. His shoulder and ribs twinge all up and down his right side, where he landed on them, but the pain is distant, clouded by the wine, the haze still holding it at bay.
The Vision, though, shines bright in his hand, pulsing proudly. Not even the dark smears of wet earth across it can obscure it from Jean's sight.
Her eyes widen, and her voice, when she speaks, is reverent. "A Vision.... I heard you cry out, to warn me. Is that when it appeared?"
For a moment, Kaeya is struck dumb by how easy a lie that would be. Everyone knows that the appearance of a Vision marks a moment when its bearer shows their true self, or their true potential. To let the world believe that his came to him in a moment of fear for his friend, that he was given this power out of his wish to save another-
Would be a lie.
Kaeya is so, so tired of lying.
"No," he says, hearing the regret in his own voice, looking away from Jean's face before he can see it fall. He shoves the Vision back into his pocket, fumbling to seat it more deeply there. "I've had it since last night."
"Oh, Kaeya," Jean says. Even looking away, he can still hear the sorrow in her voice.
She sheathes her sword, bends low in the corner of his vision, then steps closer, reaching towards him. After a moment Kaeya looks up to see that she has his sword, and is holding it out. His face is hot as he takes it, and grows hotter as he fumbles to slide it into its sheath, missing the opening twice before he grabs the sheath with his other hand to hold it still and finally shoves the rapier home.
"Are you concussed?" Jean asks, stepping closer still. That must bring her close enough to smell the wine on his breath, because her next words are scandalized. "Are you drunk?"
"No to the first, yes to the second." There's something he should tell her, he wearily remembers, and sooner rather than later. "Diluc's gone. Ridden off to Liyue, chasing some clue about his father's death. Doesn't think the Knights will do it, for some reason. I'm out of the family, and banned from the property. Elzer said I could take what I liked from the winery, so I thought, why not some wine?"
There's a hiss of indrawn breath as Jean takes in his babbling. He waits for her to pull away, but instead her arm settles around his shoulders. "I'm so sorry, Kaeya."
He smiles tiredly at her. "Not your fault."
"It is. I sent you there without thinking through all the possible outcomes. On purpose, because I had hoped that you would have a chance to sort things out with Diluc. I didn't consider that it might make things worse. I wouldn't have sent you if I had."
"I know," Kaeya says. Not because he knew that was her hope, although he should have--he's off his game, it's embarrassing--but because he does know that the last thing she wanted was to amplify his pain. "It's all right. I wouldn't have gone if I wasn't looking for an excuse. You just gave me one."
"I'm still sorry."
Jean has started to guide him back to the road, onward towards Mondstadt. She watches the landscape around them carefully, ready for another ambush. Under her aegis, Kaeya lets himself relax, starting to sink back again into the pleasant haze of the wine. The shock of the battle has soured it, though. The guilt of last night starts to trickle through. He's preying just as much on Jean's kindness as he was on Diluc's love.
What would happen if he told her the truth? He knows he can't goad Jean into trying to kill him without a bit more than the confession of a yet-unsprung plot. For her, it's not so personal a treachery. But surely she's a dutiful enough knight to take him into custody. And off the board, as either a player or a piece.
Except that still wouldn't save him from having to play. The choice just changes from a larger matter of allegiances to a series of smaller ones, day by day. Answer the questions of the Knights honestly, or dishonestly, stringing them along for however long he can manage. Or stay silent, and let things play out without his help or hindrance. That's closest to the mercy he was looking for, but even that is still a choice he has to make.
There's no way to take the decision out of his hands. What had seemed like an elegant way of cutting through the knot just leaves more tangles behind him for everyone else to deal with. It's too complicated a problem for a neat solution.
The guards at the gate exclaim to see them, but Jean waves them off with a simple explanation of 'hilichurls' and guides Kaeya on past before they can smell the alcohol on him. He realizes later than he should have that they're not going upward towards the cathedral, as he'd expected, but eastward. Towards the oldest estates in the city, the Ragnvindr mansion among them.
"I can't go back to the mansion," he tells Jean, trying to pull away. "I mean, at some point, to get things, but not to sleep. The servants must already know."
"I'm not taking you there," Jean says. Her arm tightens around his shoulders, keeping him on her intended path. "I'm taking you home. Unless you're injured enough that I need to take you to be tended to?"
"No, it's all bruises," Kaeya tells her, eager to avoid Sister Rosaria's trenchant look. Then he catches what she'd actually said. "Home? Your home?"
"My home. Where you can sleep this off without any other officers catching you drunk. I can't get you written up on top of everything else, when I was the one who put you in this situation."
She looks at him with a mix of concern and exasperation, her lips pursed but her eyes worried and soft. There's no condemnation there, only responsibility and affection. It's the same way she always looked at him and Diluc when they were children, the two of them caught doing something foolish that she'd refused to be dragged into but hadn't managed to stop them from doing. Kaeya had always assumed that the look was more for Diluc than for him, that he was merely his brother's extension in her eyes. It's strangely touching to know that he can earn it in his own right.
Of course she's feeling sympathetic, he reminds himself. Father just died, Diluc just disowned him, and she thinks their quarrel was over Father's death, not his betrayal. If she knew what had really happened, the truth that had led him here, she'd be looking at him another way entirely.
Kaeya feels suddenly sick, his stomach cramping, and it's not from the wine alone. "I wouldn't welcome me into your house, if I were you."
"Mother won't care." Jean's a terrible interrogator; she's always willing to offer her subjects an excuse. "She'll understand, under the present circumstances."
"That's not what I mean. Jean, why do you really think I fought with Diluc? He knows I came as fast as I could, and I know he didn't-" Kaeya stops there, tongue-tied a moment by the truth. His own he's willing to give away to her, but he won't share Diluc's secret. "He did everything he could do, too. I told you I provoked him. I showed him who I was- told him what I was here for. Let him know what kind of snake his father had been harboring. And for that I gained a Vision, and lost a brother."
"Kaeya." Jean's voice catches.
He chuckles, low and bitter. "Not much of a trade, is it? A piece of cold glass for Diluc, and Father, and the Knights, and you."
"Not me," Jean says, sharp and fierce and sure.
"You don't know what-"
Jean interrupts him. "Kaeya, you're drunk. Whatever you want to say, it can wait until you're sober."
Once he's sober, he might lose his courage. "Jean, listen to me."
"I don't want you to say anything now that you'd regret saying in the morning."
Kaeya turns to look at her again. The fierceness of her voice is reflected in her firm expression, her set jaw and her lowered brow. But there's fear, too, in her wide eyes and her pressed-tight lips. His honesty frightens her. Losing him frightens her. It frightens him, too, to recognize that in her face, to realize that she means it. That she's willing to let him lie to her rather than let him go.
He doesn't want to let her go, either. The truth has devoured enough of his life in the past forty-eight hours. If she wants him to wait, at least he won't have to feed any more to it until tomorrow.
"In the morning. I owe you that."
"You don't owe me anything," Jean says, sincerely, and leads him in out of the cold night air.
***
In the morning Kaeya wakes with his head throbbing, every muscle sore. He can't tell where the hangover ends and the bruises of yesterday's battle begin. It all just hurts, up and down, from head to toe.
The haze over all the pain last night was nice, though. Once he's old enough to drink publicly, he'll have to work on his tolerance. Maybe he can learn to lose the stumbling and still keep the blur.
He staggers out of the guest room and down the stairs, following the scent of toasting bread into the kitchen. Sunlight lances through the windows at the back of the house. Kaeya winces and turns his face away from the glare.
"Mother said that you should have plain bread and plenty of water, and nothing else until you're sure your stomach has settled," Jean says, looking up from the stove. "I'm toasting the bread, so it should be more like breakfast."
"Thank you," Kaeya says, lowering himself carefully into a chair and taking the glass of water she sets down in front of him.
The water helps, and he drinks three glasses before the toast is ready. Jean sits down across from him with some of her own, hers buttered while his is dry. Kaeya is at once embarrassed and grateful that she was mindful enough not to cook anything for herself that he would have to smell. He devours the toast, letting it soak up the water and bile he can feel sloshing around together in his stomach.
Jean eats two pieces of toast, more slowly and neatly than he does, then pauses when she sees he's finished his own stack. She pushes her plate forward slightly, so that she can fold her hands in front of her. Kaeya nudges his own plate to the side and meets her eyes.
"I seem to recall making you a promise last night," he says. Even with the toast, he can feel his stomach churning. It isn't the hangover making it turn.
"I wouldn't call it a promise," Jean says, even and calm. "You were very drunk. I've been warned before not to put too much credence in anything a man says in that state."
Kaeya chuckles, to put off the truth a moment more. Jean was right to think he'd be more reluctant in his honesty when he was sober. He's not sure how much truth he can bear to reveal in the morning light, how much rejection he can take without the wine to soften it. Not now that the memory of Diluc's anger, Diluc's pain and betrayal, is sharp and clear all over again. The idea of seeing the same feelings on Jean's face, of seeing the trust vanish from her gaze, makes something twist and twinge deep inside his chest.
Will the Vision vanish, if he lies to her? Revoked along with his honesty? He almost hopes that it does. He doesn't want the burden of it, joke or reward as it may be.
But Jean deserves better than that. Lying to her now is just putting off the breach of faith.
"The other night," he begins.
Jean doesn't let him get any further. "Did you intend to hurt Diluc?"
She's still a terrible interrogator, but Kaeya can roll with the attempt. "I knew it would hurt him."
"Physically," Jean says, frowning at him. "When you spoke to him, was your intention to do him injury? To provoke him into a fight, as you say you did, for the purpose of doing him harm?"
"No," Kaeya says, taken aback by the question. He feels strangely wounded that she would even ask. "If I wanted to see Diluc injured, I never would have told him the truth."
"Then is your intention to harm Mondstadt?"
That's a harder question. Kaeya hesitates to answer, meets Jean's eyes, feels his conviction waver. His intentions and his desires won't align themselves into a simple truth. Jean looks back at him with quiet patience, brow furrowed, trusting and concerned. If she's still afraid of his honesty, that fear is too well-hidden to show on her face.
"I don't know," he says at last, feeling something wrench inside him as he says it. "I don't want to."
"If you don't want to harm Mondstadt, than that should be enough." Jean reaches across the table, settling her hand over his own.
She says it so earnestly, as if it's really that simple to her. The thing in Kaeya's chest wrenches further, and he flips his hand to clutch back at hers, clinging far too tight.
"Jean, if you were faced with a choice between what you wanted for yourself, and what you knew was your duty as a Knight, what would you do?"
"If it was a choice between my duty and someone I cared about, you mean?" Jean keeps her eyes on his, and doesn't pull her hand away.
Kaeya nods, not sure if he can speak. There's a heavy weight on his chest, too vast and crushing to let any air out or in. He'd forgotten that just because she's a poor interrogator, just because she gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, that doesn't mean that she's some kind of fool. Jean knows how to read people. Especially those whom she knows well.
"I would try to help them resolve the situation in a way that would satisfy us both. To aid them with their burdens, and bring them around so that they were standing alongside me and sharing my duty, instead of opposed." Her patient look has turned to one of sad, unwavering resolve. "But if that was impossible... I'd do my duty to Mondsadt. This city and its people must always come first. You know that."
The weight on his chest dissolves all at once, like a dandelion bursting apart in the wind. He does know that. Jean may be a kind person, bound up in procedure and propriety. She can't be goaded, like Diluc could, into trying to kill him without just cause. But if he gives her that just cause, if he chooses wrong and shows his hand in doing it, Jean won't hesitate to put him down. 'For Mondstadt, as always,' even if it breaks her heart.
And it would break her heart. Diluc has already put a crack in it, he could see that much yesterday; it's clear in her face today that opposing Kaeya would finish the job. He can't ask that of her. Not right now. Not when she's been so kind, reached out the midst of her own pain to try and soothe his. Not when she's offering to help.
It's a heavy burden indeed, the choice between Khaenri'ah and Mondstadt, between his duty to his homeland and his duty to his adopted nation. Kaeya still can't handle a choice that large. But he can make this small one: that right now, he won't hurt Jean any further. Not today.
He'll have to choose again tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after. But maybe, if he's lucky, those little choices, day-by-day, can be practice. Maybe they'll finally lead him up to the greater ones. And maybe it will be easier to know there's still someone able to deal with the fallout if he makes the wrong choice.
"I do know. And believe it or not, that helps." Kaeya smiles at Jean, letting it be sad, letting himself relax further in the sad smile that she echoes back at him.
"You're a good knight, Kaeya. I've already lost one friend, with Diluc's departure. I don't want to lose another so soon after." Now she lets go of him, untangling her fingers from his loosening grasp. "If there's anything I can do to help you, to keep you fighting for Mondstadt at my side, I will do it. You only have to ask."
At her side. Close to her, where the choice is clear and present. An easy position from which to keep her safe, to support her, to help her rise the way the Dandelion Knight should. And an easy position for her to watch him from, in case he starts to fall.
"Let me join your company," he says. "Let me help you, the way I helped Diluc. I want to be useful, and I could use more work to take my mind off of events. I'll be going for captain eventually, but some time under the accomplished Captain Gunnhildr will only help."
"If that's your goal, then I'd be happy to help you reach it," Jean says, a fierce gladness in her eyes at the prospect of a mission ahead. "And I'll be glad to have you in my company until that day. But I will warn you, everyone in it works hard for the safety of Mondstadt. I won't let you shirk your duties just because you're my friend."
"I'll rely on you to keep me honest," Kaeya tells her, smirking a little to make it sound flippant. At his hip, his Vision throbs, the cold harsh pulse of unveiled truth.