A War Dawning Ch. 06

"It might be all worthwhile to find out," Evaline said, the wheels turning as she looked toward the door, imagining Xi waiting for the inevitable. "Tell them that, Bae, when you have the White Guard evacuate Court. Even if no one asks anything of them, they'll like the sound of it."

"While you do what, Majesty?"

Evaline didn't know and she said so, "Buy time for that. Make him pay a price that he'll have to live with even if...this becomes his castle. Something. I cannot fight him and I cannot win. But the people expect us to do something, and I'll be pitched to the depths before I kneel to Mareth without lifting a finger." She flicked her hand toward the door. "Bring him back."

Bae moved in a glide to the door and opened it. Xi strode in, almost as if he already owned the room. He gave a small bow before that smarmy look reappeared. "May I now tell my king that an understanding exists?"

She looked down on him even though he was taller. "What I believe is that my best response would be to send him your head in a fucking box."

His mouth opened and closed quickly and he blinked trying to process the last thing he expected to hear and the vision of his dead eyes seeing the lid close. He managed to find words. "Majesty, you..."

She rolled over him, "You have challenged Erette to war, and a battle you shall have."

He was stunned into silence for a moment. "A battle you have no hope of winning," he spat.

"Your king has an impressive toy. He needs it because he has nothing else. If he wants Erette, he can be a man and meet me on the field. Tell him so. Tell him to come face me and look me in the eye and bring his men. Tell him that I may just be a silly little woman with big tits, but I am also queen of the greatest nation in the world, and I still bet my cock is bigger than his."

Neral mostly suppressed a snort.

He stammered at the complete abandonment of decorum. "That is what you wish me to tell him?"

"Verbatim. Are you smart enough for that?"

"Yes, Majesty. And if his response to that is to simply blast the earth clean of you?"

"I don't think that's an issue because if that's what mattered to him he would have done it already. But he wants this kingdom. He wants the city. If he roasts us all in response, he's the weakling bitch I think he is and have always thought he was because he dare not face a ruler and her general because he hasn't had tits that close to his face since he nursed from them and he disdains women, the might of an army that he cannot defeat without being the honorless, weak piece of shit that he is, and he fears facing either."

"Tell him exactly that. Do you understand, Ambassador?"

Xi's face was difficult to read. He was either dealing with rage at the words thrown at him, or fear that he didn't know how Mareth would react to them. His head just might end up in a box anyway. "Yes, I do, Majesty." Each word struggled from his lips.

"Now get out."

He gave a curt nod, turned on his heel and stalked out the door. Bae closed the door and turned to see Evaline looking a bit relieved and Bae smiled unabashedly. "That was...a diplomatic breach, Majesty"

"Wasn't it though?" She looked down at the gold-braid bracelet that was keeping her from death. "At least, whatever else might happen, I've had one of the high points of my life." She gave the desk a small rap. "General? Every soldier that can ride by dawn is to ride behind us and we will play the cards we have left."

"Yes, Majesty. By your leave..."

Evaline dipped her chin with her eyes closed briefly. "Give the order, then see to your own family."

Neral returned the gesture and headed out.

***

Deres had hoped that the time spent in their quarters in Idros pouring over the notes Ariz happily provided might be enough, but, of course, very little in the world promised to be so easy. It was like having only half the pieces of a puzzle. "I can glean this piece and make an educated guess at that one, but one wrong move and she would die anyway. We need the rest of it."

"So we seek this Drax and get him to help us," Bryana said simply. We know where to start, so we go hunting." She closed the distance on him, putting her arms around him. "We will go where we need to go and do what we have to do, just as it has been."

"And in the meantime she is still in limbo." Her closeness slowed his heartbeat and calmed his spirit. He touched her cheek and she leaned into it and put her hand over his.

"But she is safe and alive. She has the time for us to do this. And now we have the end in sight and the final piece." She looked upon him with sympathy as she stayed close. "It's terrible not to know everything, isn't it? Adar, so advanced in so many ways that the rest of us wouldn't believe what it were capable of even they accepted that the place of fairy tales were real, and you cannot just wave your hands and fix it."

"Do you really think me so petty, Bryana?"

"No, Deres. It's not petty to want to help, but you make demands of yourself that no one can meet. You are frustrated when you can't simply...fix it."

"As though you know me."

She rolled her eyes. "You are not some unreadable creature is all. So let the three of us discuss the best place to start when we arrive."

It was then that there was the tickle at the base of his neck that told him that Neral was calling to him through the crystal that belonged to her. He was about to mention it to Bryana when he saw the knowing look in her eyes. The call was touching her as well and that concerned them both. He quickly went to his pack on the table to retrieve his crystal while she drew her own from the deep pocket of her cloak. "Perhaps the bandits have proven more formidable than she anticipated."

"Or there has been another attempt against Evaline."

"Let's stop speculating and find out."

They sat on their legs on the floor, gripped their crystals and concentrated deeply, letting the crystal envelop them and follow the thread of light before it opened into the expansive but comfortable living room of their home. The fire was warm and it was exactly as they knew it at first. But then they realized there was a cloying emptiness around them, as though they knew every room would be empty if they looked, which made both visibly nervous.

Before them Neral stood in the black and gold of her dress uniform, complete with cape. They saw the tension in her body and uncertainty in her eyes and that only solidified their own fears. She cane to them, arms outstretched. At just this moment she loved magic. She could sense them. She could feel them and she basked in it. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I haven't had time to reach you. Even now we are underway so I don't know how much time I have."

"What's happened, Neral," Bryana asked. She sensed that Neral didn't want to let go which made her more concerned.

She filled them in on every detail, skipping nothing and they just let her speak. She concluded with. "I don't know what will happen when we meet. At any moment I expect to be consumed by fire before I can register that I'm burning. That it hasn't happened yet suggests that the queen's gambit may save lives, even temporarily."

Deres raged and ached inside in a way he had never thought possible. His first inclination was to use the full extent of his power to meet Mareth and simply end the man before he could unleash his hell upon the world, but, since he didn't know what that hell was and what contingencies might be in place it was a foolish notion.

She saw it in the way he held his body coiled, "My knight will better serve me by not putting himself in the way of whatever that is."

Bryana took his hand and grasped it firmly. "We know now that all of this begins and ends with the Draleth. Find this weapon there and put an end to it, and then we seek the other half of the puzzle of the poison. The question is how we reach the weapon."

Deres put away his rage and focused on the problem at hand, thinking of all he had learned of the old world in Adar. It was far too long ago for those as steeped in the past to remember how it all worked, but science held sway there enough that if anyone could find it, they could. "Mother will be able to help."

Neral grasped that hope even as she had to plan that it would come to nothing. "I dismissed the house staff that have places they can go. The others with nowhere else to be...I sent them with Cassea, Tessa, and Khylen. Cassea is bonded to you. You will be able to find her, yes?"

He nodded. "How is Khylen?"

Neral choked back the anxiety. "Frightened, but strong. She has Cassea. She has Tessa. She has people around her that she knows." Mist threatened to overwhelm her vision even in this place outside of the normal bounds of the world. "She told me to win the fight and come home soon."

Bryana felt the ache, too. She could imagine Khylen saying the words. "You will."

"If there is a way, I will." She took Deres' hands in hers. "If the worst happens there is one place in the world that will be safe for you all."

"Adar."

She nodded to him. "I know that you, Bryana, and Khylen will have a home there, and that you will be safe. If you cannot see the staff with nowhere else to safety there, please help them find a place. They have been kind and loyal."

He nodded, "It will be done. Your sisters and their families? Your mother?"

"They have their own plans. I have some idea of what they are, but I do not want to know should this somehow end in my capture over my death. Leave yourself so you can be found in some way and my own mother will find you. She will not forget about her grandchild."

He couldn't help but happily remember all the ways in which she doted upon the little one. "True enough."

Neral closed her eyes and wallowed in her own memories. "You know, it's strange. I think of all I have to lose and as much as it frightens me to my soul, it makes me happy. I had a home and position before I met you...yet I had nothing. Magic brought us together and tied us to one another, but it is time and life that bind us. I love you both far more than such a small word can convey." She sandwiched herself between them to feel their warmth, showering their cheeks with kisses. Whatever this place was it was real enough to let her remember the spicy scent of the musk he favored and the flowery scent of her hair and the feel of them.

From the feel of their skin against hers to their lips upon hers, to his roguish good looks to, her sculpted and almost ethereal beauty, to his eyes, an almost sea blue with hers lighter, she needed to burn all of it into her mind. "I love you both."

"And I you," Deres said, "from the first moment I saw you rolling a vegetable in hand in the markets. You were so beautiful then, and only proved more so. Every day has been a joy. Even those days that are difficult are wonderful because they pass...and that is the stuff of life when you build your life with another. I would change nothing."

Bryana's voice wavered. "To be...bound to you both was nothing less than my salvation and I will never forget that. I am yours in this life and the next."

She pulled away from the two even though it stirred a fresh ache. "Send Elan my love, too, as I don't know that I will be able to use this again. Tell her I was proud to serve with her and proud to command her. She is an outstanding soldier and she...added a lovely light to my home and my life."

"Win the fight and come home soon."

She sighed at the play on Khylen's words, not bothering to wipe the tears away.

Neral Jaye faded from view and when the fine furnishings of their rooms in Idros became the world again, they found that both their cheeks were wet with the remnants of tears. "It...seems priorities have changed," Bryana said, wiping the trails from her face. Holding to that cold, calculating bit of herself was the only way that she could go on. "We cannot hunt blindly for this thing. There simply isn't time. When we go we have to know where to go without gambits and without waiting." She stood, smoothing her clothing more anxiously than she'd intended. "How do we do that?"

"Magic leaves traces and trails," Deres said, not leaving his position on the floor. "So does science. Fresh soot on the wall means a recently burned lamp. If this is anything like I believe it to be, it leaves a signal to be traced. We learn what that might look like, find it, and then trace it to its source."

"Mother will help with that, no doubt. It might still take time." He sorted through the steps for his own clarity. "What records of the old world there are are there. Sifting through them, extrapolating...searching."

Bryana kept her emotions checked. "It is, of course, complicated, Deres. Do not waste time talking about the time it will take when you're better served by doing. Maybe you can get them to actually help us while you're at it."

He already knew how that would go. "If by that you mean a cavalry at our backs? No. Whatever help they offer, if any, will not involve that."

She knew it was so and she fumed. "Of course not. It's not as if they owe us, specifically, their lives."

"It's due to that, most likely, that they will help us at all. But they will not risk revealing themselves to a world that almost exterminated them and would try again if they had a chance."

She understood. Being a mage herself, she knew how the world would react to her if it knew that she practiced beyond the healing and parlor tricks that were allowed. That she understood didn't make her feel any better. The people of Adar were akin to Gods compared to the rest of the world. Sometimes she just wished they would swoop in and make things better even though she knew all the ways that could go wrong, too. "Good luck and give your mother my regards."

"I will." He gripped the crystal, let his eyes drift closed and while his body went stock still, his mind went elsewhere."

And that's how it was for a march of days. He would return to himself only long enough to update them and maintain himself before returning to commune. Eventually retiring to one of the bedrooms to do so, Elan and Bryana made it their own to sleep restlessly and watch over him in the event that he needed, sleeping in their clothes so they could leave at a moment's notice. Neral was able to communicate with them for but a few moments that very night. Her troops and the Draleth were but hours away from one another and the hand of fate. Seeing her again was bittersweet for Bryana, but the sweetest part was that it told her there was still time.

And it gave Bryana solace to see that this time Elan and Neral got to say a proper goodbye.

Except that it will not be goodbye. I will not allow it. The vow alone was what let the mage finally sleep.

The tap of crystal to floor brought Elan bolt upright in the dark and the sudden movement had Bryana following suit. Adrenalin killing even a hint of fatigue, her hands extended for the simplest of spells lighting the lamps in the room. As her eyes adjusted she saw him rising after picking up the crystal and pocketing it once again. "It has been fascinating, I must admit," he said moving and speaking quickly to acclimate himself to his own body as much as than anything else.

"There was next to nothing in the histories about their tools of war since the world burned long before even the Exodus. We had to guess from Neral's description and essentially build such a device in theory. Build it and then control it from afar without magic. Building upon sciences we already use, the technomages guessed again at how it all might work, then sought out evidence."

As he spoke, Bryana rose from bed and when he finished to draw his next breath she took him lovingly but firmly by the shoulders. "This is all, as you say, fascinating and I look forward to hearing about it, but, do we have a place to go?"

He kissed her roughly. "We do."

To Be Continued...