Magic's Minister [COMPLETED]

Chapter Thirty-three

It didn't seem quite fair that the world around him remained so perfect while his life sat crumbled and broken around him.  But his life had never been fair so perhaps he should have expected this.

Sedgewick was beginning to wish that the irritatingly happy people of this aggravatingly picturesque city would take their miserably beautiful day and shove it up their aqueducts.  But since he couldn't exactly defend himself from any retaliation, Sedgewick stewed in silence as the pole boat he was riding was pushed smoothly down the watery street.  Vacia: City of Rivers.  A city whose wealth and beauty were matched only by the number of rats crawling beneath its surface. Which included the revolting, lowlife pests and the slightly more tolerable animal variety.

While the capital fought against the spring flooding like a defending army, Vacia embraced it.  An elaborate network of canals and aqueducts ran through the city like the three rivers that ran into the lake it sat on.

Memories of the countless times he'd slogged through the city's underground catacombs in search of a criminal flooded Sedgewick's mind like the water flooding a nearby canal.  Missions and fights swirled together, drowning him in a dark vortex of recollection.  They dragged him down, suffocating him under their weight.  Was it all for nothing?  All those years of struggling just to end up worse off than when he began?  He had been a good mage, hadn't he?  Skilled, dedicated, ruthless.  One of the best.  What was he now?

"Nothing," he muttered to himself.

"Pardon, sir?" asked the man rowing the boat.

"Let me off here," Sedgewick answered gruffly.

He paid the man and stepped onto the sidewalk.  Walking.  Walking was good.  No thinking.  That wouldn't end well.

Finally emerging from the dim mire of his thoughts, Sedgewick found he was halfway up the steps of the library he'd been trying to reach.  He trudged inside and weaved his way through the countless shelves that reached halfway up to the vaulted ceiling.  Finally, he found a secluded corner in the disused atlas section.  Shrugging his coat off, Sedgewick sank into a chair and cradled his head in his hands as he leaned over the table.  His fingers clutched around his now-black hair, still sticky from the dye he'd used.

He just...needed a moment.  Somewhere quiet and cool, away from the dreary room he'd slept in.  Somewhere away from the sound of hundreds of lives moving on while his was at a standstill.  Just a moment spent alone.  In silence.

"Are you okay, sir?"

Apparently, he had asked too much.

"Sir?"

Sedgewick glanced up at the random woman who had approached him.  She was young with a stack of books in her arms and her honey-blonde hair pulled back with a flower-shaped clasp.  Probably a clerk or a shopkeeper's daughter.  Her life was just starting out.  She probably helped her parents with their shop and spent her evenings with some young man who spun her tales about the life they would have together once he was more settled.  Her world was bright and beautiful and filled with possibilities.  Of course, she couldn't pass by without trying to spread a bit of her happiness to this poor, pathetic stranger.

He wanted to hate her for her pity.  He wanted to hate her for having the bright beginning he would never get again.  But he couldn't.

Why did she have to be blonde?

A chill shuddered through him.  It cracked through the last bit of resolve holding him together.  "No," Sedgewick stated, his voice both strangely calm yet holding a long-suppressed heat.  "I am most definitely not fine."