Queen Yavara Ch. 47

The stands churned with excitement, a sea of frenzied bodies all moving to the frequency of vengeance. Yavara stepped back, and nodded to Faltia. Faltia hoisted her axe, and the sounds of excitement rose. She looked down upon Prince Matthew, and he looked back up at her.

"Will you tell me why you did it?" she asked him.

"There's nothing to tell," he said, and turned his head downward, closing his eyes.

Faltia raised the axe overhead, and swung. She imbedded the blade into the wood with a thud, and Prince Matthew's head tumbled from his spurting neck, and bounced onto the sands below. I had never heard a sound so great as what came from the Alkandran people then, and I had never heard a sound so terrible as Furia's cheer joining their chorus.

FIELD MARSHAL SHORDIAN

"...I am deeply sorry for the loss of your nephew." King Ternias said solemnly, "I sent the entire city watch into the castle to rescue him, but we were too late."

"You did all you could, Your Highness." I mumbled.

I could tell he liked it when I gave him the honorific. The pleasure centers on his face lit up, and he failed to conceal his smile. "Rest assured," he said, "the murderous traitor will pay for her crimes."

"Thank you, Your Highness." I said numbly. I'd seen my nephew a grand total of three times in my life, and if I was being really honest, I never really liked him. Eric's greatest accomplishment in life was marrying Leveria Tiadoa, a woman whose stock and station was so much higher than his own that the match was laughable. She was a queen who knew what it truly meant to rule, who understood the weight of sacrifice and the need for ruthlessness. She had great vision, she had grand ambition, and she had the will and grit to achieve what she set her mind to, and Eric had decided to hitch his wagon to small-minded cowards like Lucas Ternias. As far as I was concerned, he got what he deserved.

"...and when will I get to meet her?" King Ternias asked.

I blinked. "I am sorry, Your Highness, my ears are failing me. What did you say?"

"Your granddaughter, Maya; when will I get to meet her?"

"I'll uh... I'll make the introductions when I return to court. I suppose I'll be called to represent my family now."

"No need, Field Marshal. The Noble Court has been suspended indefinitely for the sake of national security."

Of course, I thought bitterly, but said, "A wise decision, Your Highness. Is there anything else?"

"No. The people eagerly await your arrival. Thank you, Field Marshal."

"Thank you, Your Highness." I mumbled, and palmed the glass. His visage faded, leaving only my haggard reflection. God, I'd gotten old. The lines in my brow and cheeks bespoke decades of marching in the blistering sun, a spear on my shoulder, a pack on my back. I would walk twenty miles a day with a light step, but now, I did not think I could even shoulder my old spear, much less carry it. It wasn't that it was too heavy, but it weighed so, so much.

I turned around, and watched the great black horde of Alkandra file-in upon the land-bridges that spanned the marshlands. Rancid fumes burbled around the walkways, belching steam through the blankets of snow that crusted the treacherous terrain. It was like the horde was walking right into hell, but on the other side of it, there was a future. Behind me, there were rolling hills and magnificent valleys, but there was nothing there waiting for us. Oh, they'd celebrate us as victors, but the pomp and parades would be but a veil to cover the festering defeat.

"General Florence Krakis, I hereby appoint you commander of the Highland Defense Force." I said, pinning the lapels on his uniform. The cavalry division was all that was needed to patrol the border now, and though Krakis had some foolish ideas about offensive tactics, he was a great equestrian commander. He saluted me smartly, and I saluted him back.

The audience applauded unenthusiastically, and the ceremony ended with the band playing a dispirited anthem. The officers who had survived the war no longer had any taste for the pageantry of militarism. They walked over to their respective regiments, most of which were at least half of what they were before we left the Highlands. Some of them simply weren't there at all. Thirty-thousand men in gold armor stood in a state of abject surrender, simply waiting to finally go home. The orders were given, and the army marched westward.

"Field Marshal Shordian?" General Krakis asked.

"Yes?"

"The weapon you requested... it's done."

I raised my brows. "Who volunteered?"

"Joshua Jaren, sir."

"Let me see."

Krakis led me to the royal mages' tent. The twenty solemn robed men and women stood around a bed. Within the bed, was a man so shrunken it looked like everything had been sucked out of him. His skin was like a sheet over his bones, no muscle nor fat to fill him. His dead eyes were glossy as they stared into the black infinity beyond the world, and his lips were still curled with his final words. His death curse.

"Field Marshal." First Mage Lucian said with a bow of his head, and presented a sword to me. It was a standard-issue broadsword forged hastily by dwarven blacksmiths. There was nothing particularly unique about its appearance, and that was one of the reasons it was so deadly. It was a request I'd given out of desperation. The Dark Queen was killing a thousand of my men a day, and no tactics, nor magic, nor might of will could stop her. Not even the mages could stop her, for she'd struck with the randomness and suddenness of lightning. We needed something that could strike just the same; a weapon that could be swung by any soldier at any time, with a blade that could cleave through any arcane shield and render the wound it made unhealable. First Mage Lucian told me they would need seven death curses from seven of the Highland's best mages to create such a weapon. Six brave men and women made the ultimate sacrifice, but none others would, until Joshua Jaren volunteered a day too late.

I shook my head, and sighed. "The war is over. Destroy it."

"Field Marshal?!" Krakis gasped, "You can't!"

"The very knowledge of this weapon could start another war." I pointed around the room, "There are twenty-two witnesses here, and this information is priceless."

"With all due respect, Field Marshal," Lucian said, "go to hell."

"That was an order, First Mage."

"I don't take orders from you."

"Ternias will say the same."

"I don't recognize King Ternias." Lucian said, and raised his hands to his sides, "None of us do. He is a despot."

"And he's still the king."

"Queen Leveria Tiadoa is our queen."

"Here, here!" Krakis growled.

"Are you priests?" I grunted, "Join the fucking church if you want to follow a dead woman."

"But her orders still need to be carried out." Krakis said, then stepped urgently toward me, "Field Marshal, last night she called me and—"

"No, General Krakis. Just... no. It's over. We lost."

"There's still a chance!"

"There's not." I sighed, and patted his shoulder. "That fight is over, and a new fight begins. Once I wipe out those rebels in Feractianas and those damnable warg packs, I'm retiring. I'll be just another drunk fool in a kingdom of drunk fools. But you, you'll hold this line for the rest of your life." I pointed to the mages, "Remember this: a thriving nation fights outward, and a dying nation fights inward. Whatever you do, you must fight for unity, or one day we'll be nothing but a bunch of little pieces that Alkandra will eat up bit by bit."

He nodded. "Understood, sir."

"Destroy it, Krakis, or it will destroy us." I muttered, then turned around, and began my long march back to the Highlands.

ZANDER

I'd always fancied Thomas Adarian's masculine ruggedness, but the woman he'd become was an absolute vision of elven beauty. What was stranger, was that she knew how to use her beauty like she'd grown into it over decades, and not months after being transformed. The Thomas Adarian I had known was as rigid in his ways as an oak, but this Adrianna was shapeless and cunning beyond her years. Had it not been for the little bit of Thomas Adarian left in her, she might've been the cornerstone of a nation. Now, I wasn't sure if I should let her leave the room alive.

"They'll be here in five days." She finished her confession, a cigarette smoldering between her fingers.

I puffed on my pipe, the thick smoke filling the air above us in the vaulted ceiling of the high tower. Outside, the afterglow of the morning's execution hummed merrily through the populace, the jubilant sounds rising from the streets and boroughs. All of them, celebrating the death of an innocent man. If I ever saw Leveria Tiadoa again, I would shake her hand for a game well played. Where had I erred? What had tipped my hand?

"You were once a military man," I said, a stream of blue smoke cascading from my lips, "what strength is the Lowland navy?"

"Five-hundred warships at least. Each one will have siege capability, and an Ardeni mage at the helm."

"Trained by none other than Prestira Rasloraca herself." I sighed, "She has a way of spiting me even in death."

Adrianna said nothing, and instead stared at the cigarette in her fingers.

I scratched at my beard. "You have many tattoos now. Symbols of your loved ones, your deeds, and your guilt. Sherok Terdini is inked into you back, and now Alexa's symbol weighs heavily upon your breast."

"It does." She said softly.

"But where is Prestira?"

She punched out her cigarette, and selected another one from the box. I could tell she wasn't an experienced smoker, but she longed for the distraction it bought her. She lit it, sucked it between her perfect lips, and let the smoke cascade from her nostrils. "I'm an Alkandran. Alkandrans tattoo their lives on their bodies. Those I put on me are also Alkandran, but Prestira would never have truly been one of us."

I raised my brows. "And me?"

"You know the answer to that yourself, Zander."

"I guess you're right. I was always an outsider in Alkandi's kingdom, and it was her doom after all." I turned my eyes up to meet hers, "And now you have walked in my footsteps, Adrianna. What a fool you are. You call yourself an Alkandran."

"I know what I am." She said with equal parts shame and pride.

I ran my hands through my hair, and let out a long breath. "Do you want me to kill you right now?" I asked her.

"As oppose to?"

"Exile."

Adrianna kept her composure admirably, but her fingers quivered around her cigarette. I could tell she was weighing all the options, and none of them were the two I'd presented her with. "There's no getting out of this." I said softly.

"I came to you in confidence."

"And I am being merciful." I said, and set my pipe down on the table, "Do you know where Queen Yavara is now?"

"No."

"No one does. She left without a word. I don't know where she is, but I know who she is with."

"Leveria."

"Yes." I said solemnly, "You know what Yavara is capable of when she's grieving. Leveria will sing about you just to make the music stop. When Yavara comes back, you better be far, far away, or already in the ground."

She swallowed, tears twinkling in her eyes. She pursed her lips around the cigarette, and inhaled like a drowning woman. "Arthur Dreus will burn this city to ash once he hears of what was done to Matthew. I must stay here to—"

"The war is over, Governess. The horde will be here a day before the fleet, and besides that, we have the Dark Queen." I said, "You haven't seen what I've seen, Adrianna. Yavara is more god than mortal; it is why you must leave now if you want any chance of survival. I will inform the other hybrids—"

"No. I'll tell them."

I shook my head pitiably. "Don't do that to yourself."

"They know I always did what I thought was right for them." She hissed, "They know I always loved them. We're bound by more than blood."

"Of course, Adrianna. That's why they'll hate you." I said, and cast a spell. Adrianna pitched forward, and screamed. She clutched the sides of her head as the veins protruded from her temples and brow, each of them pulsing wildly. When the spell ran its course, she fell backwards into her chair, breathing heavily, her cigarette squished between her knuckles.

"I just severed the vampiric connection you have with the others." I said, "You'll no longer be able to communicate with them telepathically." I reached into my cloak, and pulled out a medallion. I placed it on the table, and slid it to Adrianna. "This is a portal that can be used only once. It will take you to where ever you want to go, as long as you've been there before. You were a well-traveled man; I suggest you go far away."

She stared at the medallion, her fingers trembling around the smoldering cigarette. "Right now?"

I nodded. "You will either leave this room through that portal, or as a corpse. I told you, Adrianna, that there's no getting out of this. If you come within a hundred miles of this place ever again, I will know, and then you will die a traitor's death."

She looked from the medallion, to me. "And what will you say to Yavara when she asks why you let a traitor go?"

"I'll lie to her, of course." I smiled, and tapped my fingers impatiently on the tabletop. "I was wrong about you after all, Thomas. You weren't worth saving. I should've let Yavara kill you back at Castle Thorum. Anyway... ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two..."

And Adrianna let out a cry of anguish, and snatched the medallion from the table. There was a flash of green light, and she was gone. I leaned back in my chair, and looked at the man who'd been standing silently in the corner. Verto had come back through my portal earlier, and had told me much. The morning had been one full of revelations.

"Needless to say, you will never speak of what you just saw." I said to him.

"I didn't see anything at all."

I nodded, then looked gravely at him. "You were supposed to keep Elena alive."

"She was alive the last time I saw her. We'd just escaped a house full of assassins. I don't know why she went back."

I pulled at my beard, puzzling over the situation. "You said Ternias wanted her dead?"

"That's right."

"Why? In the end, didn't they have the same goal?"

"She was becoming too powerful in the court."

"They would seem like natural allies—perfect partners, even. Elena never cared for power except as a means to an end, and Ternias's endgame was power by whatever means." I tapped my lips, "We're missing something, Verto."

Verto shrugged. "Does it matter?"

I inclined my head, then sighed. "No, I suppose it doesn't. The intentions of King Lucas Ternias are of little interest to us now." I looked at the map of Tenvalia Adrianna had hanging in her study, "The Highland Kingdom doesn't matter anymore. They will soon be nothing but hillbillies with noble names."

Verto nodded. "And why did you let a Highland traitor like Adrianna live?"

I smiled wryly up at him. "I believe I've answered enough of your questions, Verto." I kicked the box of gold to him. He opened it, and his eyes lit up. "Remember," I said purposefully, "not a word."

"Not a word." He echoed, and practically skipped out of the room.

When he was gone, the only sound left in the room was the drone of the metropolis coming through the windows. The skull that topped my staff stared back at me, the eyeless sockets judging my every motion. If it weren't for the seedling of doubt that had been planted in my mind, I would've killed Adrianna outright, but the seedling was there, and I decided to see how it would branch. Adrianna was the most powerful woman in the city—more powerful even than Yavara in terms of the loyalties she commanded. I wanted to keep those loyalties available to me.

I pondered the seedling of doubt. For a thousand years, I'd imagined the release I'd feel when I finally saw the reincarnation of Alkandi sitting in that chair, but there was nothing. Yavara had sat upon the Black Throne, and nothing had changed. Alkandi's death curse still petrified me with false youth, a mummy of a thirty-year-old man. I remembered the words her astral soul had uttered to me when she first visited my mind. "Until I once again sit on the Black Throne in the reborn kingdom of Alkandra, you will suffer life indefinitely." There wasn't room for interpretation, nor misinterpretation. It was as direct a curse as could be made, and only resolved by one condition. I had done it. I had fucking done it, so why was I still cursed?!

"You're a cunt, you know that?" I said to Alkandi. Her skull just grinned back, and it made me laugh, relieving some of the tension that had wound within me. I would set myself to resolving this personal problem tomorrow, but today, there were matters of state to attend to. I set my staff and my doubts aside for a moment, and pulled out the mirror in my robes. With all the activity last night, there were sure to be some calls that would be quite revealing. But when I tapped the mirror, there was nothing. All of the sigils were gone, and the logs were too. I tapped the mirror in Adrianna's office. Hundreds of sigils appeared, and I scrolled through them. Most were merchant vessels with mirrors atop their mastheads, and there were a few score from the Lowlands who were connected to the Alkandra-Ardeni relay, but of the Highland sigils, there were none. Under orders from Yavara, King Lucas Ternias had destroyed the Jonian Spire.

LEVERIA

I was staring up at a body-length mirror. It was the same enchanted mirror that I had installed in Elena's cell before she arrived in Castle Thorum. I was in that cell now, strapped onto the same board as she had been, illuminated by the same square of light that shined through the barred window. Ternias's mages had sent me here through the portal, and Ternias's men had locked me in this cage, but the irony of it all could only have been orchestrated by one woman.

"God, what a hot piece of ass she is," one of my door guards said.

"Royal ass, man. The cream of the crop," the other said.

"Can't we just—"

"Sergeant said not to touch her."

"Yeah, but who gives a shit what sergeant says?"

"Look, if it was up to me, I'd be in that cell with you, but it ain't the sergeant I'm worried about. It ain't the lieutenant, or the captain, or the major, or the colonel, or even the general. Shit, it ain't even the king. Do you know who's coming here today?"

"You don't mean..."

"Yeah, I fucking do."

"That's why the regiment's moving out later!"

"Just in case you're wondering who actually won the war." The guard snorted, "The king gives up Castle Thorum for two days like it's a fucking hotel."

"You wanna stick around?" The first guard laughed nervously, "You remember what she did to this place the last time, and those were rangers defending it."

"I'm surprised King Ternias doesn't have us doing her laundry is all. Fucking disgraceful if you ask me."

"It's her fault." The guard said, tapping the bars of my cell door, "She was the one who lost the war. Far as I'm concerned, her sister can fucking have her."

"Aye. I'm just glad I won't be here to see it. Come on, the regiment's moving out in an hour. We don't need to guard this door. She's not going anywhere."

I didn't think I'd miss their conversation, but when I heard the fading bootsteps of the fleeing regiment, I found myself longing for it. I waited for hours. The square of light moved slowly from left to right with the angle of the sun, becoming dimmer and dimmer. There was a constant drip of water that interrupted the pervading silence. Drip, drip, drip. It was the space between drips that terrified me. That silence. Drip, drip, drip. That silence carried the drip through empty stone halls, through vacant barracks, through the abandoned main corridor that looked out upon the bridge. Drip, drip, drip. Its echo sounded throughout the castle, seeming to touch the ramparts above. It was like I could see the entire structure from the different tones that sang back to me, hollow and foreboding, whispering of the great monolith of stone that stood atop me, pinning me beneath it. Drip, drip, drip. Drip, drip, drip. Drip, drip, drip, screech.