Our journey to find Lucia was a hard one. The knights were still searching for her too, but no one had a clue where she could be. What should we do? Where could she be? How were we going to find her?
We kept in constant contact with Arldat, but the complete lack of a trail bothered us. We’d narrowed her location down to somewhere in the country, but there were just too many towns and villages. And with the arrival of winter, our already slow journey slowed down even further.
Feeling completely stuck, I said the first thing that popped into my head, “Gaius, let’s go to Hasawes.”
“That’s Lucia’s hometown, right? But I thought they’d already ruled it out.”
“They did, but I just want to go... Can we?”
“Whatever. It’s close enough, anyway.” Though he was confused, Gaius agreed without prying any further. Silently thanking him, we headed west.
“Excuse me. Where would we be able to find the graveyard?”
Hearing me ask the guard at the gate once we arrived, Gaius’s eyes softened. The graveyard was outside of the town. Since Hasawes wasn’t very large, there was only one wall around it, so auxiliary things ended up outside.
Going right back out the gate we entered, we searched for a specific grave. Finding it on the outskirts of the yard, it was just as unkempt as the rest of the graves. You could tell that not only had it not been taken care of since Lucia moved to the capital, but no one else in the town had come to do it either.
We cleaned up the grave in silence, before facing her sleeping parents. They might have already been dead, but I was still nervous meeting her parents.
“Hello, my name is Celestino Clementi,” I started, thinking I should get off on the right foot. Before I could continue, Gaius quipped that I should be talking to them in my heart. I took his advice, and closed my eyes as I prayed.
I told them how many people loved her; how I loved her the most out of all of them; what happened to her. As I told them all about her, I prayed with my entire being.
Please, please let me see her again.
She might have acted mature for her age, but she got lonely easier than anyone else. I was worried that she was forcing herself not to cry after she was left alone again, thinking that nothing would change if she cried.
I want to be the one she can show her feelings to — the one she can cry to.
Though it would be nice if she had other places she could live happily, if there weren’t any, I wanted her to come back to me. Really...I wanted her to be happy at my side. I didn’t want to give her to anyone else. I would treasure her more than anything else. I promised I wouldn’t let her get lonely or hold back her tears.
So please, give my beloved Lucia back to me.
Gaius waited in silence as I prayed. He might have been praying too. I wasn’t the only one who she was important to, after all.