An orange sky painted by a newly arrived sun loomed over the buildings that made up the deserted settlement of Derban. Besides a few travelers who had passed through roughly a month after Stefan’s family had gone missing, it had been untouched by human hands for the greater part of a year. Known to few people that it was where Terra’s greatest modern-day hero Kallista Laine was born and brought up, it now laid to waste. Without maintenance, the wooden outer walls of the buildings showed signs of molding over and rot. Shattered glass was scattered all around, evidence of a violent event having occurred. Some surfaces were covered in splotches of gray, which was what had remained of bloodstains let to bleach under the sunlight for so many months. A massacre had indeed happened in Derban, like Dr. Bernard had told Gareth, courtesy of talk that had spread amongst both travelers and locals of Marius alike.
A medium-sized craft capable of carrying 30 people had landed at the centre of the village. In it were Gareth, Anwen and Vigdis. Being pushed along in a gurney was Stefan’s immobile body, tended to by the Anbieter himself. 25 ordinary soldiers had accompanied them, having been given orders by their leader. They had brought with them shovels for the purpose of carving into the ground that was adjacent to the village.
The ramp unlatched and extended, and the Anbieter allowed the soldiers to disembark before letting the others off.
“There is a mass grave in the vicinity of the village,” the Anbieter explained to his men. “Locate it, and once you do, dig it up and count the bodies. Do not return to the craft until you do so. It’ll be hard work, but the people of Derban…”
He took a glance at the lying Stefan, who could only stare at him through eyes which sat over dark eyebags.
“…They deserve to rest peacefully. Let’s do it for them. And Vigdis.”
“Yeah?” she asked.
The Anbieter waved her over to him before leaning over her shoulder to whisper something into her ear. Vigdis had a grim look on her face as she retracted from him, but she had been given instructions, and she was to carry them out.
“Everyone understand what was asked of them? If so, then go.” the Anbieter directed.
“Aye, sir!” they said in unison, before splitting up to survey the perimeter of the former community.
As soon as they had left, the Anbieter had Gareth, Stefan and Anwen to himself. He scanned the area for somewhere private to take them to, and a barn fit the requirements.
The building had been used to store bundles of hay, and the middle of it was empty, exposing the wooden floor below. The dry bales were stacked up against the walls, protected from the elements for all those months.
“Let’s sit. We may be here for a while.” the Anbieter said, pushing Stefan’s gurney gently up against a pile of haystacks that was as high as his body was elevated. Anwen somewhat hesitantly sat close to the boy’s head, while the Anbieter took a seat next to his feet. Gareth did not comply and remained standing slightly closer to the centre of the barn, a distance from everyone else.
He looked at Stefan whose eyes were skewed to the right, as he was situated on the left of the barn. He was staring right at him, more ready than ever to hear the truth. Gareth didn’t need a reminder to begin his speech.
“Stefan… you’ve been wondering how I know your mother and what sort of connection I had to her,” he began. “I’d met her on Titan, about 15 years ago. You might be inclined to think that it was at one of the Utrium mines, where Terrans were kept as slaves, but you’d be wrong. We came across each other at the Royal Palace, where the Emperor himself resides. At that point… Ms. Laine was no longer a slave, but rather a guest of the Crown,”
The Titanian Emperor freed Stefan’s mother? Anwen wondered as her father had taken a short pause to allow his words to marinate in Stefan’s mind.
“And I know you must be wondering what I was doing in the Emperor’s home itself,” Gareth continued. “I wasn’t slave, either. I was never a slave. And until not very long before I came across Anwen… that palace was the only home I knew,”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
He isn’t from Earth, Anwen deduced. And the big reveal… it’s sure to come up.
“The truth is…” Gareth went on. “What I’ve been meaning to tell you, but don’t regret hiding from you… I was born from the people that had ravaged this world for a thousand years.”
The Anbieter glanced at Stefan through the corners of his eyes. He was surprised to see that his eyes had not widened in surprise from the sudden revelation or narrowed from the anger of it being hidden away from him for so long. In fact, it appeared that Stefan’s anxious eyes had softened.
It’s like he’s… relieved. the Anbieter silently noted.
“I am the son of a Titanian father of high-standing, and a Terran slave mother. I appear human now, but in my younger years, my skin looked like white glass, and I grew no hair between my neck and cheeks. The hair on my scalp was much, much lighter than it is now. The biology of our two species overlaps enough that they can create viable offspring with one another. Enough about that for now, though. You’re wondering why your mother was brought to the Palace by the mighty Emperor,”
My deductions were correct, Anwen thought. My eyes and ears weren’t deceiving me back then.
“Emperor Halsten knew how to read the strengths and skill of people very well. Not just those of Titanians, but of Terrans as well. His officers had arrested many Free Army sympathisers and operatives. They used what we call traditional Titanian methods to deduce who their top brass were, and they had them all sent to labor camps. Some of them died… well, the older ones who absolutely couldn’t bear the cold and unbreathable air did. But Ms. Laine didn’t. Halsten… saw something in her and knew that she was something of a symbol of hope for the Terrans. Well, for the northerners, I know now. He was often called Halsten the Grey King, because his methods were cold, but they were only a means to an end of peace. Practically unheard of in Titan’s history, but… there it is. I knew Ms. Laine because Halsten wanted to show her that we were capable of not being monsters.”
“Traditional methods? Don’t sugarcoat it, Gareth,” the Anbieter scoffed. “You mean torture. I guess you can’t help it, being raised among the Titanian elite who love masking themselves under the guise of being proper.”
“Is that thing going to stay on your mug this entire time, or do you plan on taking it off?” Gareth said, threateningly.
“Don’t be so mean,” the Anbieter said. “I was just about to do that.”
Without hesitation the leader of the Black Shield had revealed his flawless, impervious face, his short blond hair along with it. His lips were relaxed so to not appear insensitive to Stefan, but he wanted to laugh at Gareth.
“I was going to show you my true face too,” the Anbieter said. “I just wanted to make sure Gareth was accountable and told you his story first. I too am of Titanian blood. Only, I hail from the other side of the Marius Mountains, not Titan.”
“You’re fighting your own people… how funny. Had you just stayed on the other side of the mountains, you wouldn’t have anything to lose as you have now.” Gareth smirked.
“I fight to lift the Empire’s curse placed on my family, and I fight for the species I was raised alongside. You, an imperial mutt, could’ve stayed in your cozy little palace and served the Royal Family as their little noble underling until you died peacefully on your soft, warm bed and called it a life. But what can I say? Once a bastard, always a bastard.”
Gareth didn’t hesitate to lunge forward. His massive hands wrapped tightly around the Anbieter’s comparatively thin neck. The Anbieter may have had enough status to live on a Titanian-ruled colony, but he had not been lucky enough to receive the military training need to fend off such a sudden attack.
“Insult me, I don’t give a shit. Come at my mother like that? That’s something else.” Gareth said through clenched teeth.
“Gareth, calm down!” Anwen cried as she tried grabbing his powerful wrists, but even her strength which was comparable to an average human man’s due to self-defence training from Gareth himself was not enough to pry his hands away.
“This scumbag called me a bastard… do you know what that says about your grandmother?” Gareth breathed, pressing even harder against his throat.
“Stop!” Anwen shrieked, tugging away at her father’s wrists. “You’re gonna kill him!”
“Is this what you want Stefan to see!?” Anwen shouted. “That you’re no better than the aliens you were born to?”
Hearing overwhelm in his normally calm daughter, Gareth’s grip loosened considerably, but he still held the other Titanian’s throat. She had a point. He didn’t want Stefan to hate him, but by the end of their visit to Derban, it might have been inevitable.
As Gareth slowly unlatched from the Anbieter’s throat, soft, slow footsteps approached the barn. As the person’s figure came into view, a smile came about his face. Although he was more than capable of it, he didn’t kill the Anbieter. Instead, he wanted to incapacitate him for just enough time that he would have to recover the strength in his neck and breathe properly before he could put his mask on. That way, the Black Shield would’ve seen his face, and their trust in him would’ve automatically plummeted. Unfortunately, it was not an ordinary soldier who had come to see their boss. But finding out that her leader was a Titanian was nothing in comparison to the news she had to deliver.
“Anbieter,” Vigdis said with a tear-stricken face and a very shaky voice. “You have to come see this.”