Queen Yavara Ch. 47

A door with rusted hinges was opened five floors above me. Drip, drip, drip. Click, click, click. The sound of boot heels walking down stone steps. Drip, drip, drip. Click, click, click. Four floors above me. Drip, drip, drip. Click, click, click. Three floors. Drip, drip, drip. Click, click, click. Two. Drip. Squeak. A faucet was turned off, and the dripping ceased. Click, click, click. Bootsteps right above me. Screech. The rusted hinges of the catacomb door sounded. Click, click, click, click, click, click. The clicking stopped right outside my cell door. A pair of orange eyes stared at me from the blackness.

"Hello, Leveria." She whispered.

"You sure took your time getting here."

"I got lost on the third floor. That damn hallway just ends in a wall. Who designs a building like that?"

"It was a great spot for hide-and-seek."

"So that's where you always went."

"No, I went through the portal back to Bentius before you were done counting."

She laughed. "Always cheating."

"I just never wanted to play with you."

Yavara laughed harder, and opened the door. It was the first time I'd seen her in the flesh since she'd gone off on that fateful solo excursion. She was terrifyingly beautiful; her curvaceous body painted bronze, her chiseled face alight with glowing orange irises and maned with wavy black hair. It was strange how up until this point, I always thought of her as my little sister. Not anymore. This was the Dark Queen, a legend, a nightmare, and the expression upon her deific face chilled me to the marrow. She walked around me, and stopped behind my head, looming over me. She reached out with her little dainty fingers, and she brushed the hair from my damp forehead.

"I heard you put on quite a show for the people of Bentius." She said.

"A performance for the ages."

"But not your final act." Yavara smiled, and gently framed my face with her hands, "You have one more performance, Leveria. It will be your greatest work, so I've given us two days to rehearse. The same two days you gave Elena in this very room."

"It wasn't me." I said.

She giggled. "I wondered if you would deny it outright, or defiantly admit it and spit in my face. I'm disappointed in you, big sis; I thought it would take longer than that to break you."

Her hands began to get warmer. Her orange eyes sparkled cruelly. Her hands became hot. Her eyes widened, a wild glint in them. Her hands were searing. I was screaming, thrashing in my binds, my vision blurring, pulsing with the pounding in my head. Smoke billowed from my cheeks, the flesh hissed and crackled, the rank spell of fried meat filled my nostrils. She ripped her hands away, and my melted cheeks tore off with them, leaving two raw handprints with black outlines on the sides of my face. I shrieked, staring wide-eyed at the ruin that had become my visage, the pain, oh, the pain burning like her hands were still there, like the fire was moving beneath the flesh. She gazed at me, my screaming portrait reflected in her merciless eyes, and she placed her hands back on my face. The pain was gone. She pulled her hands away, and my face was whole again.

"You thought you knew horror?" She asked me, "You thought you knew pain? The things you did were child's play, Leveria. You can't hurt a limb that's already been severed, but I can. I'm going to tear you to pieces and put you back together. Over, and over, and over again."

"No, you won't." I croaked.

"Do I hear one of your condescending soliloquies coming?"

"You're not like me, Yavara. You have to hate to hurt. I don't have to feel anything."

"You're going to feel quite a bit, Leveria." She said, and put her thumbs over my eyes, "But you're not going to see much for a while."

"Wait!" I screamed. She tittered, and her thumbs became warm.

SHERMAN HUNTIATA

Most of the noble district had been burned down, bodies littered the streets, the hospital was overwhelmed, and half the Nobles were dead. Eric Shordian had been cut to pieces, Percian Feltian was missing, Sofia Droughtius's crisped body had been recovered, and Elena Straltaira's body had been fished out of the bay. Most people heard she'd been tortured to death alongside Eric Shordian. That was what Ternias had told everyone, and what the watchmen parroted, but I knew the truth. Watch Commander Darius had been on the top floor when the dark-blooded nun attacked like a vengeful angel. The story would've become legend, but Ternias made sure the legend stayed a myth, but I knew. She'd been calling for me all the time she fought, right up until the moment she died. I hadn't been there to save her. I hadn't been there to turn my men around, and arrest Lucas Ternias for his treason. Now my absence had made me party to that treason, and the deed was done.

"I should tell everyone." I growled to King Ternias, surveying the wreckage of the district.

"What good would that do you, my lord?" He asked, "No one would believe you outside those who already know the truth, and those who already know the truth will never speak it. What's done is done. For the good of the kingdom, you must accept what has happened. It is what Elena would have wanted."

"I sincerely doubt she wanted this."

He brushed off the mixture of ash and snow that salted his shoulders, "The Dark Queen has pulled her horde from the border, our army is marching to crush the rebellion and the Night Wolf, trade has opened through the Midlands, and our people will not starve. Is this not what Elena wanted?"

I didn't respond for a while, only stared out at the smoldering ruins that used to be the Straltaira manor. "If you wanted all that she wanted, then why did you want her dead?"

"Because she did not want all that I wanted. I wanted to be king, and Elena Straltaira was in love with the queen."

"Bullshit."

"Why else would she fight so desperately to save her?"

I didn't say anything, fearing that any words that came from my mouth would be choked with guilt.

Ternias clapped me on the shoulder. "Great deeds are never done greatly, Lord Huntiata. Like making sausage, the recipes of power are best left unknown." He walked away, flanked by the newly-appointed royal guards he'd selected from the remnants of the city watch. There was no city watch anymore. I'd unwittingly given the pride and power of my family to Lucas fucking Ternias, and I didn't even have a penny to show for it.

I walked the bloodstained cobblestone roads, making the circuit of the noble district. The finance district had reopened now that the war was over, and the bankers and investors poured into it from the minor noble manors, giving life to the great marble and stone halls. My own bank was undoubtedly bustling with activity, and my merchants were most assuredly reestablishing contracts with the Lowlands, and trying to establish new contracts with Alkandra. Money took precedent over hatred, and really, it was the little people who harbored the hatred of nations. Those in positions of true power did not see the world as a tapestry of borders, but only as a cast of characters like themselves.

"Sherman?" A woman's voice queried.

"Hello, Catherine." I said to Lady Jonias. She looked utterly exhausted. "Why are you not with your betrothed?"

"Lucas called off the engagement."

I raised my brows. "You don't seem too sour about it."

"I knew it was coming. I thought he had his eyes set on the Straltaira bitch, but it was—I'm sorry Sherman, I know you liked her. Anyway, it was the Droughtius slut he actually wanted, but she ended up being collateral damage, so he proposed to Maya Shordian."

"The field marshal's granddaughter?"

"He took a page out of Leveria's playbook and married the army. Of course, he already had House Shordian on the line, but Eric was an easy fish to catch. The field marshal's continued loyalty requires better bait."

"Consolidation of the military, and destruction of the aristocracy. He's suspended court indefinitely pending a corruption investigation."

"A thinly-veiled threat." She snorted.

"The court will be a puppet show when it reopens, and none of us will be in it."

"And the Jonian Spire was demolished." Catherine sighed, "The pride of my family, wiped out to placate that whore in Alkandra."

"That's not why he did it. He did it because he doesn't want any of us talking to the Lowlands."

"He's made us into a hermit kingdom."

I gazed up at the high castle tower, "It's not a kingdom anymore; it's a dictatorship."

Catherine looked out at the ruins of the district. "It's quite the turn of events, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Lucas never respected people, but I always thought he respected their positions." She twisted her lips, "He forever tarnished the crown doing what he did to Leveria."

"It was disgraceful."

"I almost feel bad for her."

I sighed, my breath coming out in a billow of fog. "He sold us all by selling Leveria to her sister. No one will ever respect us again."

"He doesn't care, Sherman. He never did. If the Highlands were but a hill of cow shit, Lucas would gladly plant his throne atop it."

I snorted. "I'm not sure if the Highlands is much better. At least cow shit has utility."

"And we're built on bullshit." She chuckled.

I chuckled with her, then glanced at her face. "What will you do now?"

She shrugged. "Find a husband, pop out a few kids, grow old, and die. My ambition is gone. I just want to drink wine and get fat."

"Doesn't sound too bad." I laughed, "I think I'll do some of that myself."

She laughed musically for a moment, then it waned in her throat. The mirth left her face, and she frowned to herself.

"What?" I asked.

"I always knew I was bad at playing politics. Deception was never an art of mine. I always spoke my mind, and I could never decipher the unsaid words in conversation. I was ham-handed with my plots, and I likely lost us the Battle of the Tundra with my mismanagement of the army. My father should have never appointed me." She looked at me purposefully, "I don't know how to steer a conversation into a proposition. I don't know if you're being friendly, or if there's something cryptic in your words. What I'm trying to say, Sherman, is that I am being very careful right now, and I want to know if you would like to be careful with me."

I raised my brows. "Is it treason?"

"Not quite. Not yet."

A smile curled across my lips. "I am intrigued."

ADRIANNA

I didn't have time to consider my destination before I grabbed Zander's medallion. The first thought that ran through my head was 'take me home' but I didn't know where that was. Alkandra was no longer my home, nor was Castle Thorum. So, the medallion had taken me... home. I stood in my childhood bedroom of my parent's old estate, blinking like a fool in the afternoon sunlight. The snows had not reached the southern province of Feractianas, and so the chill that came through the open window was mild. I remembered when I was young, and my father had nailed the window shut to keep me from scurrying out of it for nighttime adventures. He went so far as to remove the hinges and place bolts within it instead. Needless to say, the window did not open. It was shattered, the glass strewn in shards upon the floor, catching the sunlight to paint fractal rainbows upon the bloodstained walls. There were bodies in the corners, the corpses bloated with rot. Not my parents, for they were long dead, nor my siblings, for they were long gone. The estate had gone to a rival baroness, a woman I'd never met, but her body most assuredly rested in this mausoleum.

Even if my parents and siblings were amongst the slain, I wondered if I would feel grief for them. They had not been my family for quite some time. The rangers had been my brothers and sisters, and then the hybrids after. As I walked through the halls of my childhood, my mind only went to those I'd left in Alkandra. I remembered the way they had looked upon Matthew, and it chilled me to my core to imagine those gazes on me. Eva with her eyes full of limitless wrath, Soraya with tears of immeasurable disappointment, Kiera looking right through me like I wasn't even there, Brianna with her questioning gaze, and Faltia, her admiration of me crumbling in her eyes, replaced with an expression of the utmost betrayal. And Furia... Maybe Zander had been right; maybe it was better that I never saw them again. What a coward I was.

I stepped into the atrium, and looked down the expansive steps. A battle had raged here, bannermen fighting nonuniformed women and elderly. Their bodies painted a picture of what had occurred, the story told from the broken bars on the doors, to the smashed barricade at the base of the stairs, to the final deformed bannerman stabbed a dozen times at the top of the landing. News of the Feractianas rebellion had reached my ears a week prior, but it was a footnote to me at the time, a piece of information so inconsequential that it ranked somewhere between the itch on my left arm and the growing need to piss. Now, it was home.

I heard the elf long before she showed herself. I'd heard her the moment I'd stepped out of my bedroom. If I'd so desired, I could've ambushed her ten different times on my way to the atrium, but I had no such compunctions. I let her flank me, and when she stepped into my periphery with her bow drawn, I raised my arms steadily above my head.

"Where did you come from?" She asked, her voice shaking.

"Upstairs."

"How long have you been here?"

"Only a minute. I traveled by portal."

She snuck around the edge of my vision. She was a young woman, though it was always hard to tell with high-elves. They aged gracefully until the last of their youth was sapped, then they turned into prunes at around seventy. They. It had been so long since I'd last seen one of my former kind, and I did not know when I had mentally changed from 'us' to 'them.'

"You're an Alkandran hybrid." She whispered, stepping into my vision.

"Yes."

"How did you get here?"

"I just told you," I said steadily, "I traveled by portal."

"Why?" She hissed, her bow quivering with tension.

"Put the weapon down, please." I said, "You can't hold it for much longer."

"Answer the fucking question!" She yelled.

"Look, you can't—" and the bow snapped from her failing fingers. The arrow shot right for my neck, and in the split-second it took to travel the twenty feet between us, I contemplated whether it was worth catching. I resigned myself to life when the arrow was three feet from me, and snatched it, my arm jolting. The woman had not meant to loose, and she cried out in dismay. Her dismay turned to horror when I was standing right in front of her a moment later, placing the arrow into the scant quiver slung across her hip.

"You're supposed to leave slack on the bowstring." I said to her, tugging on the string, "The weaker your drawing arm becomes, the less accurate you are. It only takes a moment to pull back and shoot."

She scampered back with a yelp, and fumbled with another arrow. I sighed, rushed her, and tore the bow from her hands. She attempted to leap off the top step, and I caught her before she shattered her legs on the landing below. "Stop!" I said firmly when she attempted to squirm out of my hold, "I'm not here to hurt you."

She struggled vainly for a minute, then relaxed when she realized there was no getting out of the hold. Her breath decelerated, and with a shaking voice, she whispered, "Then why are you here?"

I sighed into her hair. "I don't really know."

ZANDER

The hybrids had all reacted differently when I told them the news. Eva had tried to strangle me, Soraya had fallen to her knees and wept, Faltia had screamed at me, Kiera threw whatever she could find at me, Brianna tried to bargain with me like the truth could be haggled, and Furia had just sat and stared at me. I sat silently behind my arcane shield, allowing chairs and pots to shatter against it, softening the blows dealt by Eva's fist so that she didn't break her hand when she tried to break my jaw. Faltia paced back and forth before me, directing every military insult she could think of between her panting breaths. Brianna kept trying to reason with me, even going so far as to pull up a chair and explain why I was wrong. When Eva noticed Soraya weeping on the floor, she began screaming at her, enraged that Soraya would so easily accept my 'lie.' Furia just stared at me through the chaos, not even blinking. When Eva's wrath reached a fever-pitch, Furia stood up, walked over to her, and slapped her so hard that Eva was thrown to the floor. Then, everyone went silent.

"Furia?" Brianna asked, gaping at her.

Furia closed her eyes, and took in two deep breaths. She let them out through her nose, and when she next opened her eyes, tears poured down her cheeks. "We all know Adrianna," she whispered, "we all know what she's capable of. She did this."

Faltia shook her head, her lips trembling. "Furia, you can't mean that. If she did this, then..." Faltia swallowed, and barely hissed the name, "...Alexa."

"She was deceived," Furia said softly, "but she still harbored the assassin. She knew what kind of woman Leveria is. And when it happened, she didn't say a thing. She let you kill Prince Matthew, she sent an armada to our doorstep, and she... she..." Furia's fists balled at her sides, and she hissed, "...she's the reason only Alexa's dead."

Faltia's face lost all color. She stumbled forward, and dropped to her knees. Kiera barely caught her before her face hit the floor. Soraya cried out, and curled herself into Eva's arms. Eva held her beloved tightly, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her piercing teal gaze fell on me, and she hissed, "Where is she, Zander?"

I cleared my throat. "She wanted to come and confess herself," I said, "but I wouldn't let her do it."

"Why not?" Furia asked.

"I didn't want her to bear that shame. She deserved that much, I thought."

"Where is she?!" Eva screamed.

I cleared my throat again, louder this time. "I wanted to avoid a national incident, so I was discrete. Yavara already has so much wearing on her, and—"

"WHERE IS SHE, OLD MAN?!" Eva screeched.

Furia held up her hand, and Eva's wrath was quelled. Furia looked at me, and asked the same question. "Where is she now, Zander?"

"After she was done with her confession, I gave her a choice. She could either live in exile, or I could execute her on the spot." I reached into my cloak, and produced an urn. I set it before me, and stood up. "It was painless," I muttered solemnly, "and done with dignity. She wanted you all to have her remains to do with as you saw fit."

They all just stared at the urn I had set before them, their mouths hanging ajar. Then they looked up at me. There was no hate in their gazes, nor wrath, but disbelief. The disbelief became realization soon after. Furia stepped forward, her gait unsure and wobbly, like that of a toddler learning her first steps. She bent at the hips, and grasped the urn. Her hands were palsying when she held it. She brought it to her face, inspecting it with a scrutinizing gaze, looking as though she was trying to understand how this jar could contain the woman she loved. The urn slipped from her fingers, and crashed to the floor. She dropped to her knees, and let out a wail of such anguish that it seemed to spear me through the chest. The hybrids descended upon her, trying to console her as best they could, but her wails would not cease, and her grief was bottomless. I left that room feeling a decade older.

Why hadn't I just told them the truth? It was simple, really. They would go looking for her. The hybrids were bound to each other by more than just comradery, experience, and love. Adrianna would attempt to come back because she had no other choice. But it would take her time, and in that time, I would gather the information I needed to determine if I should let her return, or kill her outright.