Captain Gravis was the only member of the group who was a properly trained and experienced bodyguard, so he was the default leader of the security detail. He didn’t mind. Being on a team of bodyguards was a lot more rewarding than being a solo one, especially if you liked your team. He had gotten to know Commanders Rapax, Baca, Moro and Adjutus quite well on their eight month escort mission; he’d already known Commander Arum from long before, but it had been nice to get to know him as more than just a coworker. Rogue still checked in daily on the queen’s recovery and his highness’s growth, always sticking around afterwards to visit for a few hours. They were understandably close after so long spent in each other’s isolated company, so this assignment had been an easy transition.
However, they were operating on limited information. It was generally understood that an entire team of elite soldiers had been given this assignment because there was a direct threat to the queen’s and prince’s safety, but no one was quite sure what that threat was, and General Yudha hadn’t been able to be forthcoming because either she herself didn’t have the answers or the information was especially sensitive. It did make it difficult to understand where to expect a threat from, which meant everything felt threatening as they walked the hallways of the palace to the throne room.
Today was a special day. Today, Optatio would be ratified as the crown prince by the king’s council, sealing his future as the next king of the Lion Tribe. Her Majesty had spent much of the morning bathing and dressing and cooing over her little prince, preparing him for the event.
The doors to the throne room opened in front of them, and Gravis led the way through them, stepping to the side to allow Her Majesty to take the throne to her husband’s right, and the team of bodyguards moved to join the Lion General against the western wall.
Gravis only sort of listened to the formal pomp and circumstance and the dry reading of legalese. His interest was slightly piqued when Rogue was briefly called in as the witnessing doctor to give his testimony that Optatio was, in fact, Flore’s flesh and blood. He said his piece, signed his statement, and left. Gravis and his team were then asked to add their witness to Rogue’s, his personal contribution limited to “I swear” and his sloppy signature on an official-looking form. Next was the council’s part. Each member stood in turn to come forward and sign the ratifying document, a symbolic act of swearing loyalty to the future king.
“That will do.” His Majesty stood up after everyone had had their turn and gestured to a steward patiently waiting near the council. The steward bowed, exiting the room to return with serving trays loaded with wine glasses. “Let us toast the successful succession of the throne!”
The king and queen were served first, then the council starting with the council spokesman, and last the Lion General. (Bodyguards weren’t allowed food and drink while on duty for practical safety reasons.) Next to him, General Yudha seemed to accept her glass unwillingly. It caught his attention, though he remembered that she didn’t like drinking and dismissed her hesitation as such.
“To the crown prince!” The shout was repeated and those with a cup drank the toast.
Afterwards, the council began conversing merrily with each other, the chittering crowd cheerful and distracting, but not so loud that he couldn’t hear the sudden gasp next to him. “General?” She was bracing herself against the tapestried wall behind her, and her face was draining of color in real time. “General?!” He tried again more urgently. She merely doubled over, her barely touched goblet of wine clattering to the floor as she clutched at her stomach. “General!” He grabbed her shoulders in an effort to lift her face — pale, sweaty, twisted in agony.
“Rogue,” she gasped, her trembling fingers now clinging to his sleeves. “Gravis, get me to Rogue.”
He gave her his arm to escort her out, only barely making it through the throne room doors before she collapsed altogether. “General!!”
“Rogue,” she repeated faintly, and Gravis slung her over his shoulders to begin an urgent search for her husband.
“Did you see which way Rogue went?” he demanded of the nearest guard.
“Who–?”
“The general’s husband! Have you seen him?”
“He left the palace.”
Gravis started running — down the hall, through the front doors, down the palace steps. Fortunately, Rogue seemed to have been waiting for his wife to emerge from the meeting in the main courtyard, and instant fear entered his face when he saw Gravis coming. Over his shoulder, Gravis heard the general gag.
“What happened?!” Rogue was asking, scrambling to help her down to the ground so he could assess her.
“I don’t know.”
“Primordials, Callida, what–?”
She retched, her body twisting to the side to expel a horrifying mix of vomit and blood — so much blood. Poison. She whimpered and strained weakly against the obvious agony while her husband worked to do something before it was too late.
“Primordials, Callida!” He was fighting panic; that much was clear. Gravis watched helplessly as Rogue’s fingers fumbled with the buttons of her uniform. She heaved again, her head turning to the side to spill another fountain of thick blood that she couldn’t get enough force behind to project. Instead, the blood oozed slowly down her chin and neck, and she started choking. Rogue rolled her onto her side to allow gravity to help her. “M’lady, please,” he was begging, his hand against her sticky chest as her coughing grew weaker, and the general reached a bloodied hand out to him.
“I love you,” she breathed, and that breath grew evermore shallow as she rolled onto her back again, her eyes shut. All at once, she went still. She was no longer straining against her pain. She was no longer retching or choking. She was no longer breathing.
“Callida, no!” In a final act of desperation, Rogue leaned in to kiss her — never mind the blood. His right hand still lingered against her chest, his left moved to her throat, feeling for a pulse that he couldn’t seem to find and helping to brace her jaw against his kiss. He pulled back trembling, on the edge a total breakdown.
“Rogue?” Gravis prodded numbly.
“No.” Rogue shook his head in denial and leaned in, this time to breathe for her. “Come on, Callida.” He leaned in again. “Breathe!” And again. “COME ON!” And again. “Primordials, BREATHE!!” And–
She gasped back to life — this time her chest heaving to bring fresh air into them. She curled onto her side, coughing, and Rogue seemed to collapse against her from relief, exhaustion, and an aggressive adrenaline crash as her heavy panting became post-traumatic sobs. He joined his tears with hers.
“I thought I’d lost you,” Rogue mumbled into her gore-soaked hair, but the blood didn’t stop him from clutching her to his chest, pulling her up with him as he lifted onto his knees.
Relieved himself and a little wobbly in his knees, Gravis retreated to allow them some relative privacy while he processed what had just happened and just how close he’d come to losing one of the closest people he had to family. In fact, he wasn’t so sure that he hadn’t just witnessed a miracle. She’d stopped breathing completely. Her heart had stopped beating. She’d been dead! At least dying. How was she not dead? Rogue hadn’t administered an antidote. What had he done?
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And who had poisoned her?
A murderous rage began to simmer low in his belly. Someone had tried to kill her. They’d almost succeeded too.
“I’m going to kill them.”
It took Gravis a moment to realize he hadn’t been the one to say that out loud.
“M’lady, what are you talking about?” Rogue balked as the general ponderously lifted herself to her feet. Disgusted, she wordlessly loosed her dripping hair and started stripping her ruined doublet and white shirt, using them to ineffectively towel off the stickiness still dripping horrifyingly down her scarred neck and chest and now soaking into her camisole. The clothes fell in a heap at her feet before she drew her sword and began the ascent up the stairs to the palace. “Callida, stop! You… you’re barely alive. What are you doing?!”
The general stopped to consider her husband’s plea, returning to the bottom step to kiss him tenderly and brush the tears from his cheeks. “I’m sorry, Qiangde, but this can’t wait. Let me take care of this, and then I’m all yours. I promise.”
***
“Did you see where General Yudha went?” Verum was brimming with relief and joy and wanted to thank Callida for her help in making this day possible. It was only after he’d asked the Commanders his question that he realized how anxious they looked. “What’s wrong? And where’s Gravis?”
“They left,” Commander Rapax said, stepping forward to bow to his king.
“What do you mean ‘they left’?” Behind the commander, some of his comrades exchanged nervous glances, and Verum’s stomach began to hollow out. “Is everything ok?”
“We don’t know,” Rapax stated quietly, glancing at the throne room doors. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. They left suddenly. They didn’t say why.”
A familiar jolt of electric dread shot through his chest and pooled in his gut. Despite the inconclusive statements, Verum could tell the commanders were worried or even fearful about something. Something was wrong, and it didn’t take a genius to deduce that Callida was probably in the middle of that something. At least she’d taken Gravis with her. Verum returned to his throne, noting the way the commanders continued to shift their weight from side to side and glance expectantly at the throne room doors. What were they waiting for?!
It was hard to enjoy the celebratory chatter after that. Verum kept glancing between the commanders, the door, and his queen and newborn son, the sound of his heartbeat in his ears drowning out most other sounds.
BANG!
Verum jumped to his feet as the doors were flung open hard enough to slam them into the walls at the limits of their hinges, and a half-naked, blood-drenched, desperately pale Callida stalked into the room with her sword already drawn but still clean. Gravis and a similarly blood-soaked Qiandge followed protectively behind her.
The entire room froze.
“Commanders, take Her Majesty and the crown prince to their room immediately. Gravis, you stay.”
“Yes, sir,” Rapax accepted the order for the group while Callida stared down the council.
“Steward!” she called as soon as the door had been shut behind them, and the startled man stepped forward.
“G-General?”
“Who was the last person you served wine to before me?”
“I don’t know his name.”
“Then take me to him,” she snarled dangerously. Verum knew that tone; he knew what it meant: someone was going to die.
The steward wove through the crowd to the back, north corner of the council area. “He sat in this seat, General.”
She sheathed her sword, but the councilmen were still wise to part for her as Callida plunged through them. “Whose seat is this?!” she demanded of the room.
“That’s Councilman Unguis’s seat,” someone answered, and moments later, there was a shout of alarm as Callida dragged the young councilman out of the crowd and shoved him to the stone floor at the center of the throne room.
“Detain him!” she ordered, and two palace guards stepped forward to grab his arms. She then rounded on Unguis’s usual circle of friends — men who also sat in the same back corner — calling them out by name and ordering the palace guards to detain them as well. Seven men now stood front and center, most of them pale, some retaining more composure than others. “Search them!”
Cries of indignation fell on deaf ears. Their pockets were turned out and their persons patted down while Callida slowly circled them.
“We’ve finished, General.”
“And what did you find?”
She was presented with a serving tray repurposed to collect the councilmen’s belongings, and Verum watched her pick through them slowly. She rifled through a handful of notes, reading some of them, skimming others, looking up at the men they’d been collected off of with burning fury in between. And then she picked up something very small, and a new darkness entered her eyes.
“Who did you find this on?” she asked quietly, holding the object up to her soldiers who indicated the man in question.
“Unguis,” she tsked, stepping forward to shove the object in his face, “what is this?”
“A tonic,” he croaked, but there was no mistaking his terror.
“A tonic,” she parroted softly. “What for?”
“H-health reasons.”
“Your health?”
“Yes.”
She stepped closer, and Verum found himself feeling nervous for Unguis. “Then drink it,” she called his bluff.
“General?” Unguis gasped and recoiled.
“Drink. It.” She unstoppered what Verum assumed to be a small vial, and Unguis shook his head, pinching his lips together and trembling visibly.
Without warning, Callida grabbed the councilman’s face, pinching it and jerking it upwards to where the vial was waiting. She released him, and Unguis staggered back, choking and spluttering.
“You’re going to start feeling weak,” Callida began an ice-cold narration, once again circling the collection of detained councilmen as a predator would her prey. “Next, you’ll feel a sharp pain begin to build in your stomach.” Almost on cue, Unguis doubled over, collapsing to the ground. His pained moans quickly became screams of agony. “And then you’ll start vomiting blood,” Callida announced calmly through his cries, and indeed, Unguis started heaving violently, the sickening splatter sounds of his spilling insides alternating with his continued screams. Verum gagged and had to look away before it was over. And soon all was silent. “And then you die,” she declared the final step with callous cruelty, stepping over the now corpse on the ground to approach the dead man’s friends.
“Trials are messy and take too much time,” she said, addressing the remaining six councilmen. “Councilmen Gemma, Trebax, Placo, Rallus, Laniger, and Asper, I hereby challenge you to an immediate duel to the death.”
“On what grounds?” Trebax stepped forward to rebut her with a green pallor and clammy hands.
“First degree treason, conspiracy, accessories to attempted murder… and you made my husband cry,” came the silky venom but a breath away from Trebax’s face. “Take your pick, Councilman.”
“You don’t have proof,” he growled belligerently, but Callida merely smirked and stepped back to where the tray of belongings was being held to rifle through the notes there.
“Don’t I?”
“I’m sorry,” someone gasped. Verum couldn’t see who. “I didn't get a chance to burn it.”
“Your Majesty, please.” Councilman Gemma dropped to his knees next to the grisly scene of death before him to beg. “Give us a trial. Don’t allow her to murder us in cold blood.”
Verum looked between the groveling councilmen and Callida, her eyes still trained on her prey, still covered in blood — her blood — and his brain reluctantly engaged. “The challenge has already been issued, Gemma. The Lion General is perfectly within her rights to challenge you to a duel, especially given that you conspired to poison her first. Perhaps this was an effort to murder the witness to your treason?”
“What treason?!” Gemma cried.
Verum looked at Callida who finally looked back and nodded slightly at him. “The conspiracy to sabotage Her Majesty’s pregnancies as a prelude to seizing the throne!” Gemma was dumbstruck and somehow managed to pale even further from a ghostly white to a corpse gray. “Guards, see to it that they are given swords.”
“W-we don’t stand a chance…. This is a death sentence, Your Majesty,” Gemma pleaded.
“You’re right,” Callida scoffed mercilessly. “In the spirit of fairness, you’re being sentenced together, so it only makes sense that you’d fight together. I did just return from the dead. Maybe one of you will get lucky.”
“General, are you sure?” Verum asked.
“I’m certain,” she hissed back.
“So be it.”