“Excuse me,” Earl Darius hissed. The soldier in his path practically leapt out of the way, nearly tripping into the wall. All around him, servants and staff stepped aside.
A shorter blonde-haried woman ran up beside him. She had a carbine slung over her back and a saber at her side. Even now she was brushing gunpowder residue out of her eyes.
“Father, perhaps we can approach the queen later.”
“Vulpina, Queen Janize is up to something. She may have even turned against us.” Darius growled, hands clasped behind his back.
“We don’t know that. All we can hear are rumors and some movement in her personal troops.”
Darius stopped so suddenly Vulpina nearly ran into him. The earl whirled to face his daughter, his cape almost flying into her face. He looked around, noting that they had come to an empty corridor.
“Vulpina, we are losing this war.” Darius’s teeth were grinding together and yet he was very quiet. Still, Vulpina heard every word and her mouth fell open. “I know you believe it. I also know everybody thinks I won’t acknowledge it. The truth is I cannot. I am the leader of the Traditionalist faction. If I admit we are defeated we will crumble.”
“But why not surrender? Why not just give in?” Vulpina stammered, her words almost tumbling over one another.
Darius seized his daughter’s shoulders. He hissed so close to her face that he was nearly spitting on her. “We have to force the Reformers to offer favorable terms to us. They will ask for my head for sure and the confiscation of what’s remaining for our wealth. However, we are never going to be able to get favorable terms if the Queen herself negotiates a separate treaty with the reformers.”
The weight of her father’s conviction forced Vulpina to nod. “Janize might do that, but why would the Reformers accept?”
“I don’t know and that’s not the most important part right now. Janize has been meeting with the Otherworlders and dispatching members of her personal guards, the Grey Knights, to visit the different regiments under my control. She’s continued to meet with me, and she herself is showing no change. Yet, Leila, who is usually never far from her side, is constantly going out to the Otherworlders and to conduct “skirmishes” with the enemy.”
Vulpina frowned. “I saw those, father. She kept encountering Otherworlder and enemy resistance.”
Darius shook his head. “She’s faking it. She was vehemently against my idea of raiding the enemy in the first place, so why support it now?”
His daughter arched an eyebrow and crossed her arms. “Because she hates you and would object to even a good idea if it came from you?”
The Earl glared at Vulpina, looking like he’d bit into a sour grape. “We don’t have time for your cheek. Even if you are correct. That being said, we cannot ignore Janize dispatching her knights to my army units.”
“Your army units, father? Technically they’re the royal army’s.” Vulpina glanced around. Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Dad, you’re not seriously thinking of overthrowing Janize.”
The Earl closed his eyes, and pursed his lips. “Not now. There’s nothing to fight for but our own heads at this point.”
“But you did, didn’t you?” Vulpina hissed. “And you would give her up if that meant keeping your head and the heads of your allies?”
“Wouldn’t you, my daughter? They want my head, especially for what the Red Order and I have done to those fae-kin scum.” Darius took a deep breath. “Look, perhaps I was hasty. I shall consult with Master Scarlet first to see her opinion.”
Vulpina nodded, smiling proudly. “That seems to be a wise choice, though, I bet she is going to agree with me.”
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Master Scarlet listened to Darius and Vulpina whilst wiping her desk from some odd-looking green liquid. Whatever it was, she was using a levitated rag rather than her own hand.
Dumping the rag into a bin, Scarlet brushed some of her blonde hair from her eyes. “No, I agree with Darius. Janize might have turned against us.”
Vulpina blinked. She leaned forward to put her hands on the desk, but a sharp glare from Scarlet stopped her. Taking a safe step back, the woman growled, “You can’t be serious.”
Scarlet pocketed her wand and smoothed out her crimson robes. “I’m deadly serious. I’ve known Janize for years. She’s not a bad person, but she is self-interested and especially with her being in this state, I can imagine her doing anything.”
Darius blinked and exchanged a glance with Vulpina. “State?”
“Darius you dullard. Janize is actually in love with that Otherworlder bitch.”
Scarlet arched an eyebrow as the earl snorted. A smug, smarmy smile on his face, Darius waved his hand at the mage. “Leila? She’s just a useful tool to Janize. She doesn’t truly feel anything for her. If she did, she'd shower her with gifts.”
Scarlet stalked around the desk. She was shorter than the lord by about a head. Yet the quiet scowling disdain she wore made Darius step back. He then continued stepping as Scarlet stormed toward him. “You and your late wife, bless her soul, tend to be more extravagant, but I know Janize. We were friends in the past and peers for years.”
Vulpina rubbed her temples. “Then explain it to us so that we understand. Why would Queen Janize fall in love with Leila and why would that change everything?”
“Amura and Rathon only knows why those two fell in love, but there’s enough proof.” Scarlet drummed the fingers of one hand against her wand’s sheath as she paced around her work table. “Wealth isn’t what’s most valuable to her. It’s time, pride and standing. Yet she routinely lets Leila, bitchy, unkempt and uncouth Leila stay with her. She’s taken time to be with her and they share a bed pretty much every night now.”
Darius nodded, his eyes narrowed. “Alright, I see your point, but why would that change everything?”
“If Janize is in love with Leila, who becomes more important to her? Us, or Leila, who hates your guts and also has no love for me?” Scarlet pointed a still slightly green-stained finger at Darius. “What if she finds out, or has found out about the experiments we’ve been performing behind her back on Alavari? The assassinations we’ve carried out without her purview? Sure, when we were in her favor, her only allies, and when her throne was most important, Janize might tolerate it. A Janize in love with Leila, though, might care more about her than Erisdale itself.”
The words hung in the quiet air, which was suddenly devoid of any sound but for the flicker and almost quiet hiss of the workroom’s oil lamps.
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Darius sighed heavily, breaking the silence. “What do we do then?”
Vulpina pursed her lips. “We need to find out more and if necessary, we need to take offensive action, before her Majesty acts against us. We need to send a statement.”
“Better than that. We need to target the weak link, and I think we know who that is.” Scarlet grinned as Darius smirked. Vulpina took a moment before her eyes widened and she nodded.
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Leila rubbed her hands as she made her way along the street back to the palace. Glancing up at the buildings bracketing the road, she could see people peering at her behind at the edge of closed curtains.
Pursing her lips, she glanced behind her to the Water Tower. The white hexagonal building was one of the more recent additions to Erisdale’s skyline. It was where she had been meeting several of the officers of the city’s harbour defense troops. They were little more than a heavily armed city watch, but they had confided in her that they would support Janize.
This was good. It didn’t matter that they weren’t going to be able to fight Darius’s personal troops of about eight thousand human for human. They just needed the harbour defence troops not to fire the cannons they manned on the Water Tower.
She heard someone’s foot slap against the pavement. Leila glanced around, but didn’t see anybody in the dim night. Walking on, the Otherworlder thought back to the conundrum facing Janize and her.
They had the sympathies of most of the soldiers in the city, but Darius’s soldiers were better trained and equipped than the rest of them. Not to mention that she wasn’t quite sure about the remaining Otherworlders. Most seemed very disillusioned and tired by the war so at the very least they may not interefere.
More footsteps took Leila out of her thoughts and she looked over her shoulder. Five red-robed mages were following her, wands and staves at the ready. Leila drew her wand and glanced back in the direction of the palace. More mages were filing out of the alleyways.
“What the fuck is this?”
“One can’t be too careful with you, Leila. You are a bit of a mad dog after all.”
Scarlet’s drawl came from above. Leila whirled around, looking up to find the Head of the Red Order on the rooftop. Crying out a Word of Power, the woman stepped into thin air. As if she was just taking a leisurely stroll, she waltzed down toward the ground. Her feet looking like she was stepping on invisible stairs.
Leila crossed her arms, not letting the other Red Order Mages leave the corner of her eye. “Flamboyant and condescending as always, Scarlet. What do you and your cronies want?”
Scarlet’s smirk seemed to almost resemble a crocodile’s. Leila certainly thought the woman wore enough red leather with her robes to qualify as such an animal. “You’re working with the Reformists.”
Leila forced herself to roll her eyes. At the same time, she swallowed down the bubble of panic that rose in her throat. “Bullshit.”
“I knew you would say that and I know here’s nothing I can do to make you admit that. So I might as well educate you.” Scarlet crossed her arms. “Do you really think Janize has no idea of our experiments?”
“Why would I not believe her?” Scanning the group, Leila wondered if she could break out from the encirclement. She turned around, but there was no escape route being left.
“Oh come on. She’s the queen. Lying is part of her job.”
Scarlet’s voice wormed into her mind. Her heart pounding, Leila glared at the older woman. “She wouldn’t lie about this.”
“Don’t you mean she wouldn’t lie to you, her lover, her dear Leila? You do realize you’re not the first of the queen’s lovers. She will get bored of you and will take others,” said Scarlet.
Leila readied her staff. If she timed it right she might be able to cast a spell to launch herself off the ground and into the air. After that, well…“That doesn’t matter to me.”
Scarlet narrowed her eyes briefly. Her head cocked as her face took on a quizzical expression. “You’re alright with the queen treating you like trash? Like a disposable toy?”
She averted her gaze, using it as an opportunity to steady her footing. “First off, she won’t do that. And if she did, I’d be fine with it.”
Hearing a half-gasp, Leila ran through her list of spells as Scarlet crooned, “Wow, you are fucked up. I suppose I can’t get you to help me against Janize. No matter, you’re screwed anyway.”
“Don’t you remember your first mission. The one that you performed years ago where you infiltrated enemy lines to assassinate an important mage?”
“Yeah, we failed. We didn’t actually find the mage.” Leila blinked and shook her head. That had been her first mission in the war. Her first without Jessica. She’d been so young then, only thirteen. “Why are you bringing this up?”
“Oh, no particular reason. Although, don’t you find that whole attack rather odd?”
“I mean, a little, not that I saw the whole thing…” Leila’s voice trailed off. She remembered now. The mercenary company had attacked what she was told was an enemy base. Speed had been of the essence. She’d run into the enemy mage’s house, where a troll woman had been fighting the soldiers and managed to wound her.
It wasn’t her first kill, or at the least, Leila couldn’t confirm that was her first kill. The woman had killed a mercenary, and then charged her. So she’d thrown the woman against the wall. Only, that didn’t stop the woman. She’d charged her again and again, and Leila had continued to try to stop by throwing her into the wall.
Only when the woman was quiet, battered into submission, had Leila stopped her. She’d been shaking so badly, she couldn’t finish her off. So the captain of the mercenaries, Tarrin, she recalled, had then told her to start ransacking the house where she’d found a magically locked door disguised as a kitchen closet. However, she’d been unable to break it down.
Then she’d been told that reinforcements had arrived. She and another mercenary had been ordered to take the horses and run for Erisdale, whilst the rest of them were going to “finished the job.” They never followed her back and for years, Leila had tried to put that failure out of her mind.
What was the name of the village again? She didn’t recall. She just remembered that the mage they’d been sent to assassinate had been called Allaniel the Valorous.
Wait, village…Leila blinked as old memories came back. Memories that had had no previous context suddenly slammed into place. “That was no enemy base. That…that was just a random village.”
Scarlet chuckled. “Of course it wasn’t an enemy base. We wouldn’t have sent one of our young Otherworlders to an enemy base behind enemy lines.”
Something was niggling at the back of Leila’s mind. She knew she was forgetting something important. “Why did you even send me? You…you didn’t start sending anybody else on missions until they reached fourteen and many were support or reconnaissance missions.”
“Oh, well, Darius and I agreed you were a troublemaker and we needed to see how our training for the Otherworlders was doing. We also considered you expendable,” said Scarlet.
“Glad to know I was that well liked even then,” Leila hissed.
There was something about Scarlet’s subsequent sneer that put a knife into the bravado that had been buoying Leila up. The way her lips curled and how her eyes gleamed in the dim light, made Leila take a step back.
“There was also one other reason, though. You see, nobody but Jessica liked you and if you succeeded and returned, then all the better. You wouldn’t have talked about the mission with anybody but Jessica, or have been believed by anybody but her and that was important.”
“Important for what? Secrecy? But we were all at the beck and call of the War Council—” Leila stopped. Her eyes widened. All she could hear for a moment was the pounding of her own heart. “That wasn’t a War Council sanctioned mission, was it?”
The giggle that escaped from Scarlet’s perfectly made-up lips grated on Leila’s ears like nails on a chalkboard. “100 marks. She finally gets it!”
Leila, scowled, disgust twisting her lips. “That’s why you used mercenaries instead of regular Erisdalian army troops. That’s why you picked me but—wait, what’s that got to do with anything about the here and now? That was years ago. I…I killed hell, not even, I wounded one troll woman.”
Scarlet shook her head. “Mortally wounded her.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Leila asked.
“Same way I know why you are so fucked, Leila. Same reason I know that this plan, my second plan, was going to work. The peace between Janize and the Reformists is never going to work, especially if Janize truly loves you.” Scarlet crossed her arms, and grinned triumphantly. “After all, you killed Ayax Windwhistler’s mom.”
Leila’s palms felt cold. “What?”
“Don’t you remember? Ayax Windwhistler’s birth father is Allaniel the Valorous, who you were sent to assassinate. The troll woman you mortally wounded was her mother. You just managed to leave right before she and her father wiped out the rest of the Black Knives mercenary company. She thinks she’s avenged her parents, except for Earl Darius of course. I know better.”
“You’re lying.” Leila whispered.
“Why don’t you ask Ayax yourself then, if you’re brave enough?” Snapping her fingers, Scarlet shook her head. “Actually, no. Don’t worry about that.”
“What do you mean I don’t have to…” at the sudden realization, Leila’s fingers went numb and her staff nearly slipped from her fingers. “You didn’t.”
“Of course I did. I also told your beloved Janize. You can bet what she’s going to assume when you don’t return to her. And I know what the Reformists will suspect when you don’t come back.”
The mages closed in around her, Leila stood silently. All she could do was hate at how tears started to fill her eyes as they took the staff from her numb hands.
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