Chapter 19

Lexander’s extremism was becoming a threat too dire to ignore. Because of their past friendship with him, both Toramir and Sifa wanted to give Lexander the benefit of the doubt, but it soon became clear that violence would break out across the colony if he was not stopped. To that end, Toramir and Sifa set a dangerous plan into motion, one that could potentially splinter the Elementals forever. Though Lexander had broken away from Toramir and Sifa, he focused his animosity on the Pureskin leaders, not necessarily his fellow Elementals, not even the ones who disagreed with him. Even throughout his boisterous and reckless campaign, his love for all his brethren remained unconditional. That would soon change.

The Water Ministry had set aside quarters for Éclair and the others in their guest wing while the ship was being prepared for take-off. She sat at the edge of a cushy bed with blue, silk satin sheets, doing nothing in particular except staring at the floor in silence. They’d be leaving within the hour. She should’ve been resting while she had the chance, but she knew she would get no sleep anyway ... not this night. The bare room was fairly elegant with shades of silver and blue lining the walls in a way that vaguely resembled water, though she was too engrossed in her contemplations to care much for the décor. She had yet to meet the Water Elementals who would be joining them on the mission, but that was hardly foremost in her thoughts. What occupied her mind concerned Leon and Ryan, and the dreadful mess she had put all of them in. It was silly to think about such things before such an important mission, but she couldn’t force herself to let it go.

She soon felt a presence outside her room. Leon had come to her. She knew he would come. She hoped he would come. She feared he would come. Éclair let her legs dangle off the edge of the high bed as she heard the quiet tap on her door. She knew it was him before she even heard his voice asking to come in.

Éclair consented, and in he strode. He wore his customary dark uniform and robe. His black leather boots creaked with every step. He looked as impeccable as always with his combed black hair, neat glasses, dark eyes, and pale complexion. He was so tall ... so mysterious.

Leon took a knee in front of Éclair and waited for her to acknowledge him. She knew what he wanted. He needed to know. He had questions. She had left him with questions. He would ask. She didn’t know what she would say. She didn’t know what she could say. Part of her wished he would just go away and leave her alone, but another part dreaded being left alone. Ryan had left her all alone. Leon had not. Perhaps that should’ve been the most important thing to her.

“So, should I start?” he asked.

Éclair said nothing. She hugged herself with her arms, bringing her knees up to her chest. The temperature was mild, but she felt so cold. She felt cold a lot lately; she always did without Ryan.

Leon cleared his throat as he continued. “I knew ... I knew full well that things had changed since you got back. You spent the better part of a year alone with him, after all. I guess I ... I never brought it up because you never did.”

Leon breathed out, looking pained. He was always in control of his emotions it seemed, but he was straining now to maintain that control. He didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve what she was doing to him. Why? Why did it take so long for him to ask? Why did it take so long for them to talk about this? Why did she keep pretending for so long?

“Did you ... I can understand under those circumstances. I can. You were cut off from everything. You had no idea when you’d return ... if you’d return at all. Just tell me. You can tell me, you know? It won’t change how I feel for you. I promise it won’t.” Leon’s jaw clenched, but his voice remained quiet. “Did you ... did you give yourself to him?”

Éclair waited a moment to answer. She didn’t know why she waited. She didn’t know why she did many things lately. Leon’s fists shook slightly as he waited for her response. When it seemed that he could bear her silence no longer, she answered honestly.

“No. I did not.”

Leon’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t believe her. “You can tell me the truth. You don’t have to shield me from-”

“I am telling you the truth, Leon,” she said, keeping her voice low. “You may read my mind if you wish. I know you can if I don’t offer any resistance. I’ll give you full access to my thoughts. I won’t hold anything back. Not from you. Not concerning this.”

Leon hesitated. Then he came to his feet, raising his hands towards her forehead. She knew it helped with his telepathy if he had physical contact with the subject. She didn’t move. She had given him permission, after all. If it eased some part of his soul, she’d give that to him. But she doubted he would be comforted by what he saw there. True, she never shared that part of herself with Ryan, but perhaps she shared something that went even deeper.

As Leon pressed his cold fingertips to her skull, he suddenly went stiff. She couldn’t feel his mental touch yet. She would know if he was in her psyche. She didn’t always feel him in her mind, but she would feel it this time. Somehow, she knew she would.

Then he removed his hands and went back to kneeling in front of her. He shook his head. “No. I won’t do it. I believe you. I trust you. If you say I have nothing to be concerned about, then that is the way things are.”

Éclair closed her eyes and breathed deeply. He said exactly what she wanted him to say ... and exactly what she wished he would not say. “You shouldn’t trust me. I did not say there was no cause for concern.”

“What? But ... but you said nothing happened. If nothing happened, then why-”

“Leon, please let me finish,” she said firmly. “You know full well that some things ... some things go beyond physical constraints. You are a telepath, after all. You have the power of the mind.”

Éclair then told the truth. The whole truth. The truth she had been holding back from Leon since she returned. “Ryan and I ... we shared something together. We had to. We had to share everything in order to survive. In a sea of death, pain, and horror ... a wasteland of absolute isolation, we became our only anchors to sanity for one another. But now, I think we might’ve shared too much. You feared that I had betrayed you. Your fears are justified. I did betray you. For a brief time, Ryan became everything to me. Everything I was revolved around him. A part of me still does.”

Leon said nothing. He stared at her for the longest time with an unreadable expression. His scrutiny became too much to bear, and she turned away. She felt hot tears rolling down her cheeks as her shame became fully evident.

“I’m sorry,” she said, weeping quietly. “I don’t know if it helps you to hear, but I didn’t forget about you. I thought of you the whole time. I missed you terribly. I missed everyone terribly. But I know that doesn’t matter now ... not after what I’ve done. I even went to see him after we ... after I woke up in the medical wing, and you kissed me. I know I shouldn’t have, but I did! It didn’t come to anything, but it still shames me! I ... I’m so sorry!”

She hugged herself tighter, letting all her shame and her loneliness fall to the floor in the form of her tears. He stayed there with her, but she couldn’t face him. She wished he would leave ... she wished he wouldn’t just sit there staring at her weakness. She never wanted to be weak in front of Leon. She never wanted him to see weakness in her.

But she let Ryan see that weakness. Somehow, she allowed her pretenses of power to fall by the wayside when he was with her. Why? Why did she do that? Why would anyone expose such a vulnerable place of the heart for anything?

Then Leon was holding her. She returned the embrace. She didn’t know why he would hold her, but she didn’t care. She just needed the contact. She needed to know that at least she wasn’t alone.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of. I don’t judge you. I won’t.”

Éclair put a hand to her eyes and did her best to stop crying. Why was she always crying? It seemed all she was good for. She hated crying. She hated being weak. Sometimes, she hated everything about herself.

“You can’t mean that! You can’t still want me after I-”

Éclair stopped as Leon cupped her chin. “I do want you. Nothing could stop my wanting you.”

Then he kissed her. It was a strange kiss. Gentle. Leon was always gentle with her. But there was something else in the kiss. A need. A want that all his other kisses had never quite expressed before. As he kissed her, his hand came up to her thigh, rubbing her softly.

Éclair gasped in surprise, pulling away. “Leon! Wait! We ... we need to-”

He took hold of her hand and kissed it. And then he leaned his forehead against hers and breathed with his mouth next to her own. She could feel his hot breath as his lips hovered centimeters from hers. He continued rubbing her thigh, his touch still soft but persistent.

Éclair ... she didn’t know what to feel or how to respond. She had been prepared for his anger, but not this. She had no idea that this would happen.

Leon rubbed his nose against her, continuing to breathe heavily. “Why wait? I love you. That will never change. And I know you feel the same for me. That’s why you saved yourself for me. So why not let me share something with you ... something that he doesn’t have yet?”

His hand on her thigh pressed just a little harder. Too hard. His hand was steadily going up. He took hold of the back of her head and began to lean into her.

Éclair turned her head away, pushing him off by his chest and removing his hand from her thigh. “Leon, please stop! You ... you know my upbringing! You know my feelings about these matters! I’ve told you about my beliefs regarding marriage! You know that I believe such things should only occur after a man and woman are married! How could I ever look Papa in the eye if-”

Leon huffed and pushed her away from him. He left his back to her. His posture ... he looked so dejected. She wanted to reach out to comfort him, but she was afraid to. She feared what he might interpret from her touch in that moment.

“So, is that the real reason, then? It wasn’t for me, it was for that? You held yourself back from him for your self-righteous Godfather’s outdated religious beliefs?”

Éclair felt a stab of hurt unlike any she had ever known before. Anger for her was one thing, but to hear Leon speak that way of Zand made her want to ... He was just upset. He was frustrated. He had every right to be. They had discussed religion a few times. She knew he didn’t care about such things. But he cared about her. She tried to let that be enough. Though she wasn’t that religious herself, she tried to be in some respects for Zand’s sake. And she knew that this was a line of her faith that she could never cross.

“It was for both,” Éclair finally made herself say. “For you and for my beliefs. Besides. Ryan never touched me ... the way you touched me just now. I ... I don’t think he has experience in those sorts of things. You know I certainly don’t. We never even kissed.”

Although we almost did ... several times, she thought to herself.

Leon chuckled bitterly. “I don’t know why I was so worried. He is still a child after all ... immature as an Elemental and as a man. That much I always knew for myself.”

Éclair felt another flash of anger at hearing Leon’s contempt. Again, the hurt went much deeper when he directed his anger at people she cared about instead of at her personally. It took all her willpower, but Éclair bit back an insult. She didn’t know how he’d react if she got angry at him now. She didn’t want to know.

Leon then turned around and took her hands into his own. His face, it was gentle again. He was gentle. He spoke softly, tenderly. “We can take it slowly, then. One day at a time. We can still do that, can’t we?”

Éclair made herself smile for him. “If-if that’s what you want ... even after everything?”

“It’s the only thing I want,” he said as he kissed her again.

Éclair allowed the kiss. She allowed him to hold her as they sat in silence together. But still, her heart was troubled.

This was a side of Leon she’d never known before. It was a different kind of anger than Ryan’s. It was cold and ruthless. And the way he came onto her. It felt almost ... violating. He wasn’t rough, but he certainly wasn’t kind when he did that. He didn’t even consider that she felt nothing close to that kind of emotion while they were talking. Didn’t he know that she was expressing regret, not longing? And his blatant disrespect for her upbringing ... for Zand. He’d never done anything like that with her before. She couldn’t help but wonder what else she did not know of Leon. Did she even know him at all?

“This is highly irregular,” said Erica Konamay irritably, the last Water Elemental Éclair wanted to see. Erica was just as tall and beautiful as ever as she towered over Éclair with her armored arms crossed. “When Lord Sorric convinced me to take on some reinforcements from the Fire Ministry for this mission, I thought that Kaves would at least do me the courtesy of sending professionals like Victor or the Demon-Slayer. Yet here I am confronted with the self-same book club of haughty amateurs that I taught a lesson to the other day.”

Éclair attempted to strike the perfect tone of respectful but firm, a practice she acquired after years of diplomatic tutoring from her mother. “You hoped to receive professionals, and professionals is what you have been given. Squad 99’s impeccable record speaks for itself.”

Erica sniffed, that same smug smirk on her pristine face that Éclair found so irritating when they first met. “The recent accomplishments of your team are noteworthy, yes. The sacking of Nirvana and your contributions to the Fire Ministry’s extermination of the Parasites hasn’t gone unnoticed. But still, hardly comparable to a veteran like myself with centuries of battles and victories. I find it curious that the Fire Ministry isn’t willing to send a warrior of equal caliber to my own. Begs the question as to whether Lady Kaves’ goodwill towards the Merfolk is a match for the Water Ministry’s.”

Éclair held Erica’s gaze unflinchingly, knowing a challenge when she heard one. “Amateurs we may be by your standards, but my team and I were able to hold our own against you, my lady.”

Erica shook her head, holding up a finger, her blue armor creaking from the movement. “You were able to ‘hold your own’ against me when I was using only a fraction of my true strength.”

Leon scoffed beside Éclair, drawing Érica’s intense emerald gaze to him. Leon was closer to her height, but Erica was still an unusually tall woman. Made Éclair wonder if she had some Giantess blood in her family lineage.

“You have yet to consider, my lady, that perhaps we too were holding back,” said Leon in a derisive tone that was a match for Erica’s smugness. “Would make for quite the interplanetary scandal if the celebrated Wave Crasher of the Water Ministry suffered an injury in a training exercise against the far less experienced and supposedly far less powerful Fire Elementals of Squad 99.”

Leon’s tone was a bit less diplomatic than Éclair would’ve preferred, especially given their past interactions with this woman. Still, she was happy that someone was standing up to Erica. The woman thought far too highly of herself, even if she was a Wielder.

Erica gave a cold chuckle, looking Leon up and down in a suggestive manner that Éclair didn’t like. “You are a handsome young man, Lurranna. All the more reason to tread carefully. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to that pretty face of yours.”