Fourth Vector Ch. 18

Jack put a hand on the man's shoulder. "I know it can't be easy to watch your own people suffer while feeling helpless to stop it. You have my sympathy for that."

Aedan took a deep breath. "I do think it just needs to run its course. All I can do is try to lessen the casualties. I'd hoped for a better start to my reign though. Many Picards only knew my father as king. He reigned for nearly forty years, a long time for any king. He was a good man and a good father as well. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever measure up to his reign."

"I remember your father well," chirped up Kat. "You will always have big shoes to fill with the kind of man he was, but he was always proud of his son."

"It appears the people think I have a lot to measure up to as well. I know they blame me for this plague. I also know they look at the Swabians with a distrustful eye. But this may be my only chance to do something good for the start of my reign. If I can turn the Swabians into allies, perhaps I can earn the trust of the people."

Jack shared a knowing look with Kat. Aedan was more likely to sprout wings than to earn an equitable relationship with the Swabians. He didn't voice his opinion though, knowing that Aedan already seemed set on his own.

However, the Picard king didn't linger much longer in his quarters. "Well, I've taken up enough of your time. I need to get back to the palace before they recognize I'm gone."

"Can we continue our talks another time?" asked Jack. "I'm sure there is much we can share with you while we're in Picardy."

Aedan nodded. "Of course. Just don't try to sway me from the Swabians, all right?" The king smiled, letting Jack know his tone was more in jest than serious. "But, yes, I'd enjoy that, Jack."

"Can we come to the palace then?" asked Kat. "Our ships are a bit cramped at the moment, and no doubt we'd appreciate the chance to speak with you on home territory."

Aedan thought about it for a moment before nodding. "Certainly, that's fine. I'll send an escort to come get you tomorrow morning if that's all right by you? I don't want to draw attention to all of us being out at this time of night, but I will gladly welcome you to my home."

Kat gave him a relieved smile. "We'd really appreciate that, Aedan. You have no idea."

"It's the least I can do for you, Katherine," he said, turning toward her. "It was great to see you again. I'm looking forward to catching up with you after all these years."

"As will I. Thank you for your hospitality, Aedan."

He gave her one last smile before moving to Jack. "And it was good to meet you too, Jack Easterbrook. We shall discuss more tomorrow."

"I look forward to it. Thank you, Aedan."

"Sleep well, both of you."

Just like that, the bushy-bearded king was gone. Jack had Twitch lead him topside while silence descended in his quarters. Now that Aedan had left, he could focus his full attention on Kat. His expression quickly darkened, especially when she struggled to meet his eyes.

Jack took a deep breath and approached his desk, sitting down behind it. He didn't dare sit at his bed. He wanted a barrier between himself and the lovely Galician woman.

Or, as he'd just learned, the former Galician Regent.

"Why, Kat? I thought we were done keeping secrets from each other? Isn't that what we agreed back at your home?" he started, knowing the likely effect it would have on her.

Kat soon looked up with helpless, sad eyes. "I know you're upset with me, Jack. And you have every right to be. Will you please just allow me the chance to explain?"

He shrugged. "Sure, I guess. What else can I say? It's true though, isn't it? Aedan isn't wrong. Your name really is Katherine Rosdahl."

She nodded. "It is."

"You were the Regent of Galicia."

Kat swallowed. "For three months and twenty days total before I woke up one morning to find my cousin had seized power behind my back. The army no longer followed my command. Not even the palace guards. About the only person who would still follow me was Jacob. After that, I fled."

"There seems to be a whole lot of story in there somewhere," said Jack, waving his hands. "I want you to start at the beginning. No more secrets, Kat. You owe me the truth."

Kat took a deep sigh and looked back to him. Her eyes were still watery, but she wiped them with her hands before putting a brave look on her face. She moved to sit down on the bed beside the desk, turning her body toward him. "I do owe you the truth, Jack. So here it is. Yes, my full name is Katherine Rosdahl. My father was Marcus Rosdahl, who ruled as Regent in Galicia for nearly forty-five years, which was an extraordinary long time for one man to rule."

"Marcus Rosdahl," muttered Jack, dumbfounded. "So he's the one that killed—"

"Yes, he was," interrupted Kat with a desperate look. She raised her hands. "Please, Jack. Just let me tell you the entire story? If you want me to leave afterward, I will, but I really need to get this out."

Jack ground his teeth together and kept his gaze focused on her. Ordinarily, the look in her eyes was one that called to him, beckoning him to wrap his arms around her body and comfort her. But with what she'd just admitted, and who she came from, he wanted to keep his distance. He could scarcely begin to think of the implications, and instead he pushed them from his mind, training his attention back on her.

"Fine, go on, Kat."

Kat took another deep breath. "Most of the world knew Marcus as a man not to be crossed. He was a deeply vain man, and he hated for anyone to think they could get the best of him. He would go to long lengths just to prove points to anyone, even in spite of himself. He wasn't that ambitious, nor did he ever send our forces beyond Galicia, but to those at home, he was more like a tyrant than a ruler."

Kat wiped another tear from her eye. "But to me, he was just my father. He had ruled for nearly twenty years by the time I was born, his only child. I knew he wanted a son so strongly that he even divorced his first wife to remarry my mother. That caused quite the row with that noble family, I'm told. They didn't like when their daughter was cast aside in favor of my mother, but they had remained married for nearly fifteen years without any children. At that point, my father picked my mother, the only daughter of a little known noble house. He quickly divorced his first wife and remarried my mother."

"It still took them a long time to conceive, but my mother finally fell pregnant with me. Oh, how he wished for a male heir," said Kat with a pained expression. She looked to the floor even as her lips kept moving. "I'm told he used to whisper against my mother's belly for a boy nearly every night."

"Your mother told you that?" asked Jack.

Kat shook her head. "No, I've never met my mother. She died in childbirth with me. My servants told me that on days when my father was cross with me. As you can imagine, our relationship didn't start off on the right foot. He lost a wife to gain a baby daughter. He knew nothing about children, and so I spent more time with my own servants for the majority of my early years. It wasn't until later on in my life that my father finally accepted his fate and began to prepare the world for me to be his heir."

"Even after that point, our relationship was cordial but never loving. He could be very attentive to his role as a father, especially when I got old enough that he could dedicate time to my own studies. He taught me a whole host of matters—how to lead, how to negotiate, how to command respect from others. Every trick or tip of statecraft that he knew, he passed on. As you can imagine though, as a preteen girl, it wasn't what I wanted to hear. At that age, I had other things on my mind."

"I imagine they were the same things on the mind of my preteen brain," said Jack, even managing a small, commiserating smile with her.

Kat returned it only to look back down to the floor right after. "I remember one instance in particular. He'd just finished a lesson about how to deal with foreign dignitaries. At the time, I remember liking a boy more than I'd ever thought I could before. I was no more than thirteen or fourteen, and not only was my mind maturing, but my body was as well. I remember asking him if I could spend time with the boy, only because he'd requested my presence as well."

"How did that go?"

"Not well," said Kat with a deep breath. "He backhanded me across my face." Kat reached up and rubbed at the spot. "He called me a silly girl who needed to make better use of my time than letting boys chase after me. After that, I never saw that boy again. His family was forbidden from the palace, and I was almost never allowed to leave it either until I reached maturity."

Jack nodded, unable to hold back his silence. "I'm sure it couldn't have been an easy childhood with that kind of man for a father."

"No, it really wasn't. I know it's wrong of me to say it, but when he died, I was so conflicted. I knew I should feel upset, or that I should probably cry about it, but I just couldn't feel anything for him. He was a tutor more than anything, even a father. We just didn't have any deeper type of familial connection."

Jack crossed his arms in front of his chest, wanting to ask the question that was most on his mind. "Did you know that he was hunting my family?"

Kat nodded her head quickly. "I did. Not from him directly, but from the few times I was invited to the council once I was a teenager. I wasn't born yet when you were taken to Java, and I was only a few years old when his attack succeeded when Vera was a baby."

Jack turned away from her. In that moment, he couldn't even look at her for that implication. She didn't seem to notice, or she didn't let it bother her as she kept speaking.

"But he knew you were alive, and he knew your grandmother was too. He believed that she was hiding on some remote Galician island."

"How could he not find her? I didn't think there were that many islands that made up Galicia?" he questioned.

"There are five main islands," said Kat. "Two big islands and three small. There used to be a sixth big island, but the Swabians control it now. With those large islands, there are countless smaller ones as well. You could spend a lifetime traveling from island to island and never reach the end of them before you died."

"My father had figured out that you were out of reach. He didn't know what happened to Vera, but he assumed she was with Evelyn hiding on some remote island. He would send his guards to look for them and try to hunt them down."

Jack swallowed heavily. "What did you think of all this? You were just a teenager when you first learned about it."

"Not when I first learned about you, but when I first learned he was hunting your family," she clarified. "I didn't know what to make of it. My father never told me who you actually were and what your family represented. He went to great lengths to avoid referring to your titles or your status as royalty. You were just troublemakers to him, people that were better off dead than alive. It wasn't until one lesson when I questioned him and made him tell me the truth about your identities."

Kat raised her head and locked eyes on him. "And he did. Told me everything there was to know, saying that some day it would be my burden as well. He said that as long as the Galician heirs existed, I would have to hunt them down and kill them one by one."

Jack felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He knew that if Kat really wanted to kill him, she could have done so a thousand times by now, knowing that wasn't her intention. Yet a tiny part of him moved his hand to make sure his service pistol was still within easy reach. He wasn't really sure why he did that, but Kat's attention went back to the floor and she continued speaking.

"I tried to turn him against it," she said quietly. "I tried to reason with him that we were just caretakers of the throne like it was meant in the beginning. He thought I was silly. He often thought that. He asked me what would happen to our family if you retook the throne? He said he worked too hard and that our family had worked too hard to rule the country that we couldn't just hand over power so easily. In that moment, I knew the power had corrupted him, and that he would never release it even if the heir did come forward."

"All that gain power are most afraid to lose it," quoted Jack, drawing Kat's attention back to him.

"What?" she asked.

"Just a lesson I remember from the Academy," said Jack. "It means that powerful people are most scared of losing their power. Ultimately, it will corrupt them to do anything to maintain that power. It's a common theme with many of the rulers of the world."

Kat nodded, before wiping away another tear. "That was Marcus Rosdahl. Scared to lose power no matter what. He even did everything he could to make sure I would succeed him. He never wanted a Rosdahl not at the helm."

"Our own emperors are like that as well," added Jack before shaking his head. "I'm sorry to interrupt you. Please continue."

"I'm not sure if my appeals to him had any effect," she said. "But he stopped hunting your family so much after that. I think he may have realized that you were no longer in the West and that Evelyn was so old that she wasn't a threat. Perhaps it could've been his advanced age at that point, but he started to focus full attention on the succession. He made sure that I was ready to succeed him when he started to fall ill. Unfortunately, that's where my cousin comes in."

"Eric," muttered Jack.

Kat nodded. "The son of my father's younger brother. As wrongheaded as my father was, Eric was even worse. My father took a practical approach to ruling. He did care about his family, hence his many attempts to make sure I succeeded him and his efforts to make sure I would make for a good regent. There was good in him, but Eric inherited a full dose of the Rosdahl genes. He was cruel, even sadistic by most accounts. He decided from a young age that he only cared about power, even before he ever tasted it. That was enough for him to decide he wanted to succeed my father."

"Did he have a realistic shot?" asked Jack. "I know some countries frown upon women rulers. Was there ever a chance he could've succeeded in your place?"

Kat nodded. "There was even a petition from many nobles to let Eric succeed my father once he was near the end of his life. My father ripped it to shreds, swearing that either I would succeed him or no one would. I think he saw what Eric was. He probably saw too much of himself in Eric is my guess. Like I said earlier, age started to remove his rough edges. By the time he was on his deathbed, it was almost like he tried to make up for all those lost years by becoming a father again."

Kat started to cry at the memory, quickly pushing her hands against her face. Jack had the urge to comfort her again, to take her in his arms and wipe the tears away, but for some strange reason, he remained seated, waiting for her to regain her strength to continue the story.

After a minute, she wiped her eyes and resumed her composure. "When father passed away, his plan worked, surprisingly. I was hailed as regent by all the nobles while my cousin stewed. I quickly set about trying to become a good leader, but I was very young. I had just turned twenty-two when my father passed away. To find myself in charge of millions of Galicians, I was quickly overwhelmed, despite my training."

"I imagine that couldn't have been easy. To so suddenly be thrust into that role," said Jack.

"It was terrible. Not much more terrible than the plan my cousin hatched though," said Kat, wiping her eyes. "You see, he was very angry that the nobles accepted my accession to the regency. I found out afterward that he spent considerable time trying to bribe them into appointing him. That was one area that my father had the most influence though. He ruled for so long that none of them would dare to cross Marcus Rosdahl while he was still alive. Once he was dead though . . ."

"They started to look for alternatives," finished Jack.

"They quickly fell out of favor with me," replied Kat. "For what it's worth, Jack, I commanded them to stop searching for your family. I know I don't have a way to prove it to you, so my word will have to do, but I had nothing to do with it while I was regent."

She stared at him with pleading eyes, and he didn't need to question her words. He could tell when something wasn't right, but the look in her eyes told him everything he needed to know.

She was telling the truth.

"Unfortunately, my cousin got wind of that, and used that to spin tales. He told them I was actively looking for your family, which was a lie. He told them I wanted to return you to the throne, and he spun elaborate webs of what might happen to their way of life should the kings return. He said many of them would lose their noble status for letting Galicia fall so far during the tenure of the regents. Whatever he said, it must have worked. He started to turn them one by one."

Kat turned her attention back to the throne. "He then went to work on the army. Once he had the nobles in his back pocket, the generals didn't last very long. I'm almost embarrassed to say that it only took him three months to depose me, but when he pulled the trigger, it happened almost flawlessly."

"What happened that day? The day you were deposed, Kat?"

She shook her head. "Nothing out of the ordinary at first. Until I went to breakfast and found out my ministers were refusing to give me reports for my cabinet meeting. Before I could have them questioned on it, Eric barged into my apartments and commanded my guard to arrest me as an enemy of the state." Kat's head fell down. "They did so without question."

"I was then thrown into the palace dungeons while Eric was hailed as the next regent. It seemed the common people of Galicia couldn't have cared less about some girl who'd reigned for less than half of a year. I wasn't allowed visitors, and for the next six weeks, I was locked inside a cell no bigger than five feet on any side."

"But you got out though, right? How did you do that?" asked Jack.

Kat managed a small smile. "Jacob was the one to release me. He was one of my servants at the time, and one of the only people that still remained loyal to me. Outwardly, he would never have been suspected as being loyal, and he managed to say the right things to the right people. Inside however, he never once lost his faith in me, and he struggled to get me released."

"He found his opportunity one night when he bribed the guard away with promises of endless drinks at one of the watering holes in Kalmar, the Galician capital. He was able to set me free, and once we disguised my appearance, we managed to get on a freighter ship bound for another part of Galicia."

Kat raised her eyes to look at him. "As you can imagine, my cousin was furious. He thought that I would try to fight a civil war for the regency against him so he mobilized the army to find me. I knew I could never hope to be so ambitious. The army answered to him and him alone." Kat then took a deep breath. "But I knew there was another way I could relieve him of the throne he stole."

"Me," muttered Jack.

Kat nodded. "You, Jack. I knew that you were out there and that you had more claim to the throne than anyone else. So I tried to find you."

"That's a pretty big turn, even for a Galician Regent," said Jack. "Were you motivated by revenge just to find me?"

Kat shook her head. "Yes and no. Yes, I would love to see my cousin get his comeuppance, but there's something else as well. Something that happened to me when I was just a girl."

Jack gave her a confused look. "What was that?"

Kat looked off into the corner and smiled. "Something that was told to me by a seer. I was with my father as we walked through the marketplace in Kalmar to see another noble when we were confronted by a seer. She told me the following, 'Wife of the Galician King you shall be, child. Guard him against your family lest he be consigned to an early grave.'"