I Will Be the Greatest Knight-Chapter 434: Finally Understanding

"Safe travels!" Thyra wished the two teenagers as they loaded their horses.

"To you as well," Irene responded. "Good luck fishing today."

"Yes, to you as well," Arne agreed as he finished tying his saddlebags securely. "There are plenty of fish in this area."

The couple had stayed in the fishing cabin that night since it was taking a long time for Frey's thick clothing to dry. However, the Litharions didn't mind extending their help to people in need. Plus, it allowed them a good home-cooked meal. Neither Irene nor Leif would have made something so impressive when left to their own devices.

After their failure of a first day, the couple opted to stay and fish for one more day. On top of that, they also decided to reuse the Litharion's ice hole because it seemed that the lake they normally fished would have a bad memory attached to it for the season. It was also not their preference to be close to the pile of ash of what remained from their two assailants.

"Better hurry, mother is going to worry," Irene directed as she and her brother got onto their horses.

"She'll worry no matter what," Arne argued as he adjusted himself on the saddle and sat properly.

Irene sighed, and her green eyes traced along the path ahead.

"Frey seemed quite nervous to be on top of ice again," Irene explained. "I think we ought to take the path around the lake even though that will add quite a bit of time to our return."

"You're probably right about that," Arne admitted. "Can't imagine falling through the ice in the first place."

"We were just raised to trust it," Irene responded with a laugh. "Growing up always seems to ruin the innocence of things like that."

However, Arne's expression grew dark, and Irene's questions compounded. There was something that was being unsaid, she felt. Arne's behavior was much too serious sometimes. It was like he was hinting at something he couldn't quite say.

Even though the two were known to have tiffs that led to scuffles, he had never taken it out on her for becoming a knight like he did when they practiced together back home.

It was just another thing she needed to get to the bottom of before she returned to the Duke's Tower and figured out the next steps of whatever her Commander wanted to tell her.

It would happen so much more quickly than she was expecting.

When the siblings arrived back at their family home, Arne went off on his own and disappeared quickly as he had been doing since she arrived home after the Winter Solstice Banquet. Her brother had never been so aloof before in her life. That should have been her biggest hint that something was going on.

Since they had taken quite a while to get home, it was dark only a little while after they returned and even though Irene wanted to settle down, she found herself pacing around as she tried to gain the courage to approach her parents about what was going on.

Last she checked, her father was in the library. Since he was usually the easier person to talk to, she decided to try him first.

However, all her determination seemed to crumble when she saw that the door was uncharacteristically open for that time of year, allowing the heat of the room to get into the hallway. That meant that someone else had gone inside to see Arthur. For some reason, she didn't want to face both of her parents if that were the case.

Deciding she would backtrack, Irene retracted her reaching hand and turned on her heel.

But not before she heard the most haunting noise of her father losing his breath while a cough struck him from the depths of his chest. He was gasping as if he couldn't take in any air.

"Arthur, it's getting worse, isn't it?" was her mother's desperate response.

Irene had no other choice but open the door all the way. Her eyes became wild as she scanned her parents for an answer.

"What's getting worse? What is that cough, father?"

But the answer wasn't verbal at first.

First, her parents seemed guilty, but beyond that, she could see a visible exhaustion. The shadows from the fire pronounced each wrinkle or dark space.

Had she been foolish not to notice prior to that?

"I deserve to know what's happening," Irene persisted, her hands clenching into fists. "What's going on between the two of you?"

Arthur dragged a pillow off the couch Rochelle occupied, and he put it next to him on the floor where he had been sitting with his wife hugging his shoulders.

"Sit down, my sweet girl," Arthur ordered. It was gentle, but still an order she couldn't ignore.

Irene sat down next to her father and leaned against him, although she leaned a little less than she might normally. All of a sudden, he felt so incredibly fragile to her, and she wasn't entirely sure why.

There he sat amidst the two women most important to Arthur in the world, with his wife behind him on the couch as his nub of a hand rested on her hand that hadn't left his shoulder. He let out a hoarse sigh as he decided how he could explain his way out of it. There wasn't an excuse to be made. He simply needed to tell his daughter the hard truth.

As he gained the courage to do something more difficult than facing a bear on his own, he found the fingertips of his remaining hand playing with Irene's wavy, red hair that was so much like his own.

"I'm sick," he finally admitted. "It's not getting worse. It's always just there."

Irene's lips were closed, and her chin wrinkled as she resisted the urge to snap. Why was she not important enough to tell the moment he found out something like this? She started thinking about unfairness, only to realize how the true unfairness was all the conclusions she was jumping to. The reason he likely held back was because of how unbelievably hurt she felt in that very moment to be kept in the dark—as if that mattered at this point in time when her father was there, but he was sick.

"With what father?" Irene asked desperately, turning to the former knight. "Have you been facing monsters? What if there's poison, like when Chemois was at war?"

She knew it was completely irrational, but she was grasping at straws for something tangible that she could fix.

The words of the people they met while ice fishing struck her. They had said the monsters in the lands hadn't been managed as well as before. Was this one of the many signs of her father's well-being?

"I've already seen a healer, my dear," Arthur explained. "It's nothing like that. You don't need to worry about me for now. All it is is a cough."

"It doesn't sound like just a cough," Irene whispered, arguing her point. "Does Arne know?"

"He does," Arthur admitted. "I've had to start preparing him just in case."

With that, everything fell into place. How burdened Arne felt and how he kept disappearing to be by himself whenever he wasn't in the library or with Irene doing sword practice. She had dragged him away from their home only for him to disappear on their return. She wanted to find her brother and show him that she finally understood.

However, her father—her rock—just told her that he was sick. His last sentence of preparing his heir for the unspoken truth of a possible departure from this life was hanging over the heavy room with heavy silence.

Her unwillingness to leave her father's side caused Irene to eventually drift off against his firm shoulder.

She eventually found herself being woken up by being picked up as if she were a small child.

"I'll take her to her room," Arthur whispered.

"You shouldn't strain yourself," Rochelle whispered back. "She's an adult; she can walk herself there."

"She's still my little girl."

Irene would normally resist this unnecessary treatment, but at freshly nineteen years old, she felt it was a privilege he could still hold her. What if that stopped being the case soon? What if he lost his strength?

She managed to pretend to sleep until she was tucked into her bed.

And there she was able to bare her heart for the world as hot tears escaped her eyes and she tried not to imagine a world where her father wasn't easy to reach on the other end of a letter.