Wataru looked up at her intently.
“It was more than ten years ago now. There was a man, a killer. He murdered many to satisfy his greed. And he was very clever, terribly clever. He spun lies to deceive those around him, never letting us glimpse the truth.
“But one day we took a chance and set a trap for him. It was a chance like none other we’d ever had or would never have again. I can’t tell you how happy I was.”
The trap backfired, said Kutz. The criminal was eventually released.
“We argued for days. But in the end, the killer was set free. It’s true, we baited him. That was the only way we could bring him to justice. And we were told we were wrong. We were indicted. The killer walked away and laughed at us.”
Within two weeks, the killer entered a merchant’s house to rob him and murdered the entire family. But his luck had run out, and he was caught at the scene of the crime.
“What happened next? He was hanged. But, if we’d never let him go in the first place, he wouldn’t have been able to rob and kill that one last time. Even if it was illegal, what we had done was clearly the right thing to do. I believe that even to this day.”
A spark of understanding went off in Wataru’s head. “Wait…the one who indicted you…”
“Boris Ronmel. At the time, he was a Highlander like myself. Now he’s Captain of the Knights of Stengel, of course. You’ve met him, haven’t you?”
Trone had told Wataru that, a long time ago, Kutz had been dumped by Captain Ronmel.
“Boris upheld the law above all else. He supported the Senate too. And the branch chiefs, they listened to his opinions. But I thought people’s lives were more important than all that. Yes, I went against the law. But I don’t regret it for a moment. That’s why I could never forgive him for indicting us. Nor was he able to forgive me.”
And so they had parted ways.
“You were in love with Captain Ronmel, weren’t you?”
Kutz looked at Wataru, a faint smile on her lips. “We were. But even still there are things one can’t forgive—that one shouldn’t forgive. In my mind, he’s responsible for the deaths of that unlucky merchant and his family. And I’m sure that Boris still thinks I was wrong. Oh, we’re both right in our own fashion, of course. It all depends on which side you choose to take. I wouldn’t give an inch, nor would he. I knew him better than anyone else in the world. And he knew to expect the same from me. That’s why he didn’t hesitate for one moment to indict us. That was the only way he knew to stop me.”
Wataru remembered Captain Ronmel, his clear blue eyes filled with incredible calm and wisdom, which looked as though they could see straight through to the back of his head. He shivered, imagining a face-off between Kutz and the captain.
Kutz moved silently over to Wataru’s side, stooping to put her hands on his shoulders. “Mitsuru is your friend. But if you feel what he does is wrong, you must act. You can’t stand silently by and let evil happen. Maybe you’ll never see eye to eye, but that doesn’t mean you can give up. If he’s wrong, you must tell him.” Kutz stood up from the railing.
While they were talking, the curtain of night had fallen over the grasslands. In town, torches blazed, and in the sky stars became countless scattered fragments of light.
“I…” Wataru began after a long pause. “I don’t want Mitsuru to do what he’s been doing. I don’t want him to keep hurting the people of Vision just to get to the Tower of Destiny. It’s…it’s wrong.” An image of the wreckage in Sono flashed across his mind. “But I felt like it was cowardly of me to say so. Like I was looking for some excuse to stop Mitsuru, just because I didn’t want to lose.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Kutz said softly. “That’s just an excuse you tell yourself so you can give up. If you don’t want Mitsuru to do what he’s doing, if you think what he’s doing is wrong, then you must stop him no matter what—even if he says you’re a coward.”
“Because he’s my friend?”
“No, that’s not it,” Kutz said with a sharp shake of her head. “You’re forgetting something very important.”
Wataru raised an eyebrow.
She grabbed on to Wataru’s left hand and lifted it above his head. “You’ve forgotten that you’re a Highlander.”
She gave his hand two shakes. “You swore an oath. To defend peace in Vision, to protect the word of the law. How can you just stand by and let someone destroy that peace? If you’re going to stand here and pretend you just don’t see, you’re not qualified to wear the firewyrm band.”
The red bracelet on his wrist glowed softly in the starlight. Wataru thought he could feel a warmth in it, like when he had fought for his life against Father Diamon in the Cistina Cathedral.
“It doesn’t matter that you’re a Traveler, that you might be chosen to be the sacrifice, or that you’re now in direct competition with Mitsuru. You’re a Highlander. That’s why, until the very moment you’re called by the Goddess, until the very last breath of your life, you must follow Mitsuru. You must yell until your voice is hoarse, calling him back from the chaos. You must plead with him and show him the wrong that he does—the value of those things he crushes and destroys to reach his goals. You must tell him that he is wrong, that you think he is wrong. You must stop him.”
Suddenly Wataru remembered his parting with Captain Ronmel at the observatory at Lourdes. Just as Kutz did now, he had put his hand on Wataru’s shoulder and looked him straight in the eye.
—You are a Traveler. You must follow your own course. Never forget that.
—I’m sure that Kutz the Rosethorn would say the same. She is your leader, and I would have you follow my advice as though it were hers.
He was wrong. Kutz didn’t feel the same way. She didn’t want Wataru to follow his mission to the end, she wanted him to be a Highlander.
Once again, Kutz and Ronmel were a step out of sync, yet both of them were right. And the look in their eyes when they spoke to him was exactly the same. It was funny, and at the same time, a little sad. Wataru felt his eyes sting.
The question before him now was this: Which truth do I follow? Where will I stand? Wataru looked up at Kutz and nodded slowly. She smiled and nodded back. “Then come—come with us to the north.”
“You’ve been planning this?”
“We need your help, Wataru.”