Chapter 19:

  "The Beauty and the Tragedy"

  Arc 2: Chapter 8

  POV: "???"

  The return of Luna and Luka was less an arrival and more an apotheosis. The kingdom's streets boiled, a sea of upturned faces, white and golden flags waving like a cult to the hope the Queen of Light embodied. The news reached Flávio's house like an electric shock.

  "They're here!" Raphadun burst through the door, breathless. "At the south gate. Come on! We have to be there!"

  Flávio was already moving, straightening his worn shirt with sudden nervousness. Fencer closed his notebook with a snap, his face impassive. And Empty… even in the chair, his body a heavy burden, a faint vibration of anticipation ran through his fragile torso. His eyes, dulled by fatigue, gained a tenuous gleam, a reflection of the sun Luna brought with her.

  In the Tower of Light, the Great Hall was in an uproar. It was a microcosm of power. Ver?nica, of the House of Science, her purple eyes scanning the environment, spoke in low, intense tones with Bruce Darking—a dialogue between the new era of reason and the old era of brute force. Aldert Fingard, of Exploration, devoured a banquet as if in a trench, his eyes lost in maps only he could see. Theodora Lighting sat like a sculpture of pain and dignity, watching the granddaughter who returned triumphant.

  Then Luna entered.

  She crossed the gates with the posture of a sovereign, the mantle of the Definitive Light floating behind her, her face a mask of serene authority. Every eye turned to her, the axis around which the world spun. But her eyes—those green eyes that commanded legions—swept the room with a specific search. And they found.

  In the corner, leaning against the wall like a consented shadow, was Raphadun. And beside him, in the wheelchair, the dark and quiet point that was Empty.

  The queen's mask fell. Seriousness dissolved into a ray of pure, personal joy. She deviated from protocol, ignoring initial greetings, and went straight to them, her steps quickening.

  "Raphadun! Empty!"

  She knelt before the chair, her mantle forming a pool of light on the floor. Her eyes scanned Empty, and the happiness of seeing him was instantly overwhelmed by shock. The deterioration was visible, palpable. The skin beneath the mask seemed more translucent, almost clinging to the bones. His breathing was a gasping whisper, a conscious effort.

  "You're okay, aren't you, Empty?" Her question was a thread of hope, not an investigation.

  Empty, under that gaze, gathered his last reserves. The pain, the weakness, the infinite fatigue… all receded before the joy of seeing his beacon. Behind the visor, his eyes narrowed, the familiar wrinkles forming. It was a smile. Complete, genuine, one beacon answering another. He nodded, a slow but decisive movement.

  Luna smiled back, a smile that hurt from being so true.

  "I'm sorry for being away this month," she said, her voice low just for them. "I want to catch up! Everything you wrote, everything that happened."

  Raphadun leaned in, a mischievous smile on his lips.

  "He's been writing a diary, you know? Not even we can read it."

  Luna laughed—"That's good, Empty!"

  After some time catching up.

  Luna looked at Fencer, who watched from afar with his habitual reticence. Determined, she rose and crossed the hall. Fencer stiffened when he saw the queen approaching him. His past—his failures, his scar, his ostracism—weighed like armor. What did she want?

  "Fencer!" Luna's voice was clear, without ceremonial coldness.

  "Majesty," he replied, head slightly inclined, eyes wary behind his glasses.

  "My brother told me. You took care of him. You taught him to read, to write, to give voice to his silence. Thank you so much."

  Fencer was stunned. Gratitude? Directed at him?

  "It… it was nothing," he stammered, his quick analysis trying to find the political angle, the hidden game. There was none.

  Fencer felt a lump in his throat. "For us." She included herself. She saw Empty not as a resource, but as a person. His distrust cracked.

  "He is," Fencer agreed, his voice a little firmer.

  Luna lowered her voice, her gaze flickering for a second to Empty.

  "Since you're a scientist… and you'll understand this better than if I asked Flávio or Raphadun…" she hesitated, the queen giving way to the frightened friend. "How is he really? Until… until when?"

  The words fell between them like stones. It was the question no one dared ask aloud. The cannon of feeling and sadness Luna had kept contained fired, and Fencer saw the weight on her shoulders, the crack in her public image.

  He took a deep breath, abandoning academic coldness.

  "He doesn't have much time," he said, his voice surprisingly soft. "The doctors… their calculations are ruthless. But, Majesty…" he met her eyes. "He would be infinitely happier if, in the time that remains, you were here. Present. Like you are now."

  Luna swallowed hard. Her eyes landed on Luka, on Bruce, on Aldert, on Theodora—the weight of the kingdom, duty, politics. Then they returned to Fencer. She nodded, a small, grateful movement.

  "I understand. Thank you so much, Fencer. Truly."

  She turned and returned to the center of the room, but her royal bearing now carried a new shadow, an intense sadness that only Fencer seemed able to see fully.

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  On the other side of the hall, as Raphadun wandered off in search of food, Empty was left alone in his corner, an island of quiet in the sea of power. It was then that a colossal shadow blocked the light.

  Bruce Darking stood before him. The Strongest Man in the World did not bow; his presence was physical pressure. Empty looked up, his curious eyes meeting the emerald ones that had seen so many battles.

  "We never had the chance to talk," Bruce's voice was a low roar, almost confidential. "After the diagnosis. You saved my grandchildren. You kept the promise, my son… that Andrew could not fulfill until the end. I owe you that honor."

  Empty merely observed, head slightly tilted, like a bird studying a mountain.

  Bruce leaned in slightly, his white scar standing out under the crystal lights.

  "You did this. All of this. For the kingdom. For them." He paused, his eyes piercing the mask as if seeking the spark within. "Knowing you were dying with every act. Isn't that so?"

  It was not a question from one who doubts. It was from one confirming an axiom of the universe. Empty, with the brutal honesty that was his only language, nodded. Yes.

  A murmur escaped Bruce's lips, so low it might have been the creak of his own armor.

  "Interesting."

  And then he turned and rejoined the mass of power, leaving Empty with a word laden with inexhaustible meaning. "Interesting." Was it admiration? Resignation? The recognition of one warrior by another who had chosen a different battlefield? Empty would never know. But the weight of Bruce's gaze remained.

  The party flowed. Wine poured, laughter rose. Flávio, in his element, hugged Fencer and told terrible jokes. Raphadun, already quite drunk, spoke loudly and without filter.

  "Watch your mouth, boy," Bruce growled from his seat at the head.

  "Let the fool be, Grandpa!" Luna laughed, her laughter light and free, a version of her few saw.

  Everyone laughed. Luka watched a genuine smile on his face.

  "Damn, you guys drink, huh?"

  Luna looked at the group, her heart full. Her gaze landed on Empty beside her. He watched everything, a silent recorder of that joy. She smiled at him. And he, like a faithful reflection, smiled back.

  As the night advanced and collective euphoria became a self-sustaining whirlwind, Empty felt himself slowly becoming invisible. Conversations flew over his head, jokes lost context, and his immobile body blended with the furniture. An ancient, pre-verbal loneliness began to tighten his chest.

  Driven by a silent impulse, he maneuvered his chair out of the main hall into an open side corridor. The cold night air caressed his mask. He looked at the starry sky, a ceiling of mysteries he would never decipher.

  And then memory struck him. Not a vision, but a sensation in his phantom body. The burning of barefoot child feet running across dead earth. The roar of primordial darkness boiling in his veins, propelling him forward. The pure, irrational, glorious will to move.

  A tremor ran through his atrophied limbs. The dormant darkness in his core stirred, responding to the echo of memory. With an effort that sprang from his soul, he placed his hands on the chair's armrests and pushed. His treacherous, heavy body rose. For a second, he stood, trembling, a wax statue about to melt.

  He took a step. The foot dragged across the stone floor. Another. The darkness within him sang a distorted hymn of power. He tried to run, phantom muscles contracting…

  And fell.

  The impact against the cold floor was dull. His hands, still instinctively, dragged forward, fingers scraping the stone, his body trying to move as before, as it should move. His eyes, behind the mask, held no pain. They held deep, sad rage, an impotent fury against the very trap of flesh and bone he had become.

  "Empty!"

  Fencer's voice cut through the corridor's silence. He had noticed his absence and gone searching. He saw the scene: the fallen figure, the pathetic and heroic effort, the gaze of silent agony. His heart froze.

  He ran and knelt, placing his arms under Empty with a strength he did not know he had.

  "What are you doing?" his voice came out harsh, but the question was rhetorical. He had already understood. He had seen that look before—in the mirror, years ago.

  Carefully, he placed Empty back in the chair. Empty was motionless, head bowed, rage giving way to overwhelming shame.

  Fencer said nothing. He pushed the chair in silence to the end of the corridor, where a large arched window revealed the kingdom's vast night, the city lights twinkling like fallen stars.

  "Empty," Fencer began, his voice flat, without judgment. "I don't know what to say to make this better. As a friend, as… someone who understands. Nothing heals this. Incapacity. Imperfection. People try, invent potions, prosthetics, philosophies… but they never truly understand the concept. The truth is, there is no concept. There is only the reality of what you cannot do."

  He raised his hand and lightly touched the scar running from his forehead, across his right blind and inexpressive eye, to his cheek.

  "I know. I know very well what it is to be strong and then… not be. I was ambitious. I used science to forge power where there was no foundation. And the price?" He lifted his left arm and, with an almost inaudible click, detached the glove, revealing a hand and forearm of polished metal and exposed cables, a work of crude and functional engineering. "Almost my death. And part of me is gone. Forever. This arm, this face… they are reminders."

  Empty looked at the mechanical hand, then at Fencer's disfigured face. There was deep recognition there.

  "You are like a mirror to me, Empty. A distorted mirror, but a mirror. And I tell you: never think this is an absolute end. The end is what you do with what remains. See how Luna looks at you; she clearly loves you."

  Empty seemed to ponder. Then, with a slow movement, he took the notebook attached to the side of the chair and a pen. His trembling handwriting wrote: "married?"

  Fencer read it and, for the first time that night, a true, bitter, and understanding smile appeared on his lips.

  "Do you really think she married Luka willingly?" he whispered, leaning in. "It was duty, Empty. To unite Houses, to consolidate power, to give the kingdom a symbol. Political marriages are like that. The heart… the heart is a luxury sovereigns can rarely afford."

  Empty looked into the hall, where Luna laughed with Luka. His thoughts, simple but profound, tangled.

  "Well, that doesn't matter now," Fencer concluded, his tone softening. "What matters is that you're not alone in this. Understood? You have a family. Dysfunctional, loud, drunk… but it's yours. All of us can find a family, even if we've had one, never seen one, or lost ours."

  He put the glove back on his mechanical arm and began pushing the chair back.

  In the hall, the party had reached its peak. Luna, visibly drunk, hair loose and face flushed, searched the environment.

  "Where were you guys, idiots?" she called, stumbling slightly toward Empty and Fencer.

  On the other side of the room, Bruce grabbed Raphadun by the arm, his gaze severe.

  "Your sister. Go contain her. She has an image to maintain."

  Raphadun, also drunk but in good humor, shook his head.

  "Don't worry, Grandpa! It's just her fun! She deserves a bit of this, for the love of light!"

  Luna, then, ignoring protocols and glances, grabbed the handles of Empty's chair.

  "Come on, Empty! A dance! The champion's last dance!"

  Luka watched from a distance, his body leaning against a pillar, arms crossed.

  Beside him, Bruce Darking let out a sound—something between a grunt and a muffled laugh.

  "Your wife is dancing with someone else," he said, his voice a low rumble.

  Luka didn't respond.

  His eyes were fixed on Luna. She was laughing, stumbling in the chair, Empty's hands guiding her movements with an absurd delicacy. Her crown was crooked. Her dress dragged on the floor.

  Luka felt the weight of the glass in his hand. The cold glass. The pressure of his fingers.

  He didn't squeeze. Just held it a little tighter.

  "She's happy," he said, finally.

  Bruce looked at him sideways.

  "And that bothers you?"

  Luka turned his face away. Didn't answer. He brought the glass to his lips and drank.

  He watched Luna again, who had started pushing Empty's wheelchair in awkward circles, her own lack of balance mixing with the impossibility of the movement. It was strange. Ugly. Pathetic, to some. A drunk queen dancing with an aberration in a wheelchair.

  But for Empty, as he was spun, the world around him blurred. A borrowed memory, acquired in some long-forgotten battle, invaded his mind: Alice Lighting, in Andrew Darking's arms, in a chamber about to collapse. The sweet and agonizing taste of a first and last kiss. Her final thought echoed in his consciousness as if it were his: "I just wanted this to last forever."

  Empty looked at Luna, her face illuminated by a free and rare laugh, her green eyes shining without the weight of the crown. He did not understand romantic love, political duties, or human complexities.

  But he understood that moment. The pure and desperate desire for a fragment of happiness, however imperfect and ridiculous it might seem to others, to never end.

  And as the wheel of his chair creaked on the marble and the queen of the kingdom laughed like a girl, Empty's eyes, behind the mask, smiled. Not with joy, but with a deep and tranquil understanding. He was, in that instant stolen, from time and death, exactly where he should be.