CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Fall of a House

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Several days after his encounter with The Impure, Bram found himself standing atop a hill of verdant grass and staring out at a grand view of the Rhyne as the river brushed against Bastille’s southern shore.

It’s a good day for a feast.

He could already see it in his mind’s eye, the otherworlders arriving in droves like stars falling from the sky to fulfill the promise of their great undertaking.

‘I wonder how many will answer—’

The sound of whimpering reached Bram’s ears, drawing him out of his musings, sending his gaze away from that picturesque scene surrounding the hilltop to the tragedy about to unfold before him.

“Please…” pleaded a waifish young man whose sandy hair was caked in dirt. “Please…spare me.”

Gone was his expensive-looking armor which had gleamed in the light of the sun as it shone down on that clearing where Bram had encountered him, the same clearing that saw the defeat of House von Galen.

“Alaric…”

As one of the young nobles who’d bullied Atlan’s seventh prince during his time in the capital’s academy, Bram thought he would relish this moment. However, seeing one of his bullies looking so miserable—Alaric’s body and clothes lacking the usual polish nobles put into their appearance, with his hands tied behind his waist and kneeling before his captor in supplication—Bram found that he couldn’t enjoy the moment. Instead, he pitied Alaric for his fall…and the upcoming sentence placed upon him thanks to his parents’ failings.

“Bram — Prince — please, spare me…” With a weeping gaze, Alaric pleaded with Bram. “I-I’ll be loyal… I swear it!”

The prince sighed.

He recalled with clarity the tragic deaths of Alaric’s parents and the role he played in their end. Though Baron Archibald did blow himself up while failing to become a demon like Vicomte Henry had done, Bram did push the baron to that point of no return. As for the former baroness, Bernadette von Galen reaped what she sowed. Still, the prince couldn’t help feeling guilty at taking her life, and a similar guilt flowed through him for what he was about to do.

“How could you swear loyalty to the one responsible for your house’s fall?”

“I can! I will!”

Bram could see the glint of hope in Alaric’s eyes, though, as the prince’s gaze swept through the hillside and to the spectators watching his every move, he knew Alaric’s hope was a false one.

No turning back now…

There weren’t many spectators this time. Despite how nobles loved stepping over each other, there were few among them who could stomach watching the fall of one of their own. Not in person. That just wasn’t done. Indeed, apart from Ser Anthony and the knights of his order, Bram’s uncle, Vicomte Conrad, was the only high noble in attendance. The twins, Lady Petra and Ser Severin, were there as well to show their support for Bram which they’d promised him after sharing tea with the prince and his scarlet knight only yesterday.

Catching his gaze, Lady Petra smiled, and Bram, recalling what they’d discussed during their meeting, couldn’t help blushing.

“She is a pretty one,” said the redhead standing to his left. “I guess you’re considering her proposal after all.”

Rowan wasn’t wrong. Like her handsome brother, Lady Petra was a tall, fair-skinned beauty who’d turned many heads the first time she and her twin had visited the Sovereign’s court with their father two years ago.

“That’s not—”

Bram stopped himself. After all, there was no point lying to one who could glean his thoughts and emotions.

Proposal…

In Lady Petra’s words, “Your Highness needs a partner with the right pedigree, wealth, and influence whom the high nobles of your court can be satisfied with. Rather than a deal of trade and security between our two shires, a joining of houses would make for a much stronger alliance.”

Though it hadn’t been an outright proposal, Lady Petra’s suggested did suggest like she wouldn’t mind being betrothed to Bram for the sake of an alliance, something the prince didn’t think he’d hear after all the failed matches of his past. Of course, Bram hadn’t known how to reply. At least not within the boundaries of teatime. So, he’d tactfully set aside Lady Petra’s suggestion while promising to visit her father in Lorrainne soon.

“Your Highness, please!” came Alaric’s voice, once again drawing Bram from his musings.

Bram’s brow creased.

“I killed your cousin,” he said matter-of-factly.

Confusion flitted across Alaric’s face. “W-What…?”

It had been a while back, but Bram could still clearly recall the moment he’d kicked a knight of the White Rose off a cliff, sending the poor fool to his doom. The system had revealed that knight’s name to be Jasper von Galen. Bram couldn’t forget Ser Jasper even if he tried because the small knight had been the first life he’d taken.

“I watched as he choked on his own blood, blood flowing down the hand that stabbed him,” Bram continued as if he couldn’t stop now that he’d begun, “and when I threw him off the cliff, I knew I’d become enemies of House von Galen eventually.”

“T-That’s,” Alaric began, but Bram cut him off with, “I killed your mother too…”

Bram pointed a finger at the broken section of his bastion’s walls which were still visible despite their distance from the city.

“I cut her down with a single swing of my sword just before I told her that she’d doomed her son with her betrayal…”

Anger flashed in Alaric’s eyes, though it lasted only a moment. It was replaced by an expression that made Bram’s skin crawl to see. It almost looked to him like excitement had flitted across Alaric’s face before he could compose himself.

“M-My mother was stupid…” Alaric conceded.

Having a mother as great as his, Bram couldn’t understand how Alaric could sound so unfilial.

“She tried to save you.”

“She was a fool to challenge you…just like my father was.” It was obvious that Alaric was trying hard not to smile. “I-I’m not like them. I know how great you are. I will serve you — I promise!”

A wave of repulsion hit Bram then, the kind that caused goosebumps to appear on his arms.

“It’s almost as if he feels no remorse for his parents’ deaths,” Rowan said as she drew closer. “Though I suppose surviving is more important than seeking vengeance…at least for some.”

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But what comes after survival? Bram thought.

The prince shook his head.

“I couldn’t trust a man who’d serve his parents’ killer,” Bram answered, his hand reaching for Dusk’s hilt, “and if you truly could forgive me for their deaths, then you’re someone I don’t want by my side.”

“N-No!” Alaric shook his head. “Please, Your Highness!”

Bram’s ears were deaf to his appeals now. The choice was made.

He felt pain in the hand that held Dusk’s hilt, and then a violet-orange blade blazed to life where there was none earlier, bathing the grass underneath it in twilight’s soft glow.

“N-No!”

Alaric tried to get up from the ground, but the broad-shouldered Ser Edwin Mallory arrived behind him to drive the prisoner back to his knees.

“Your Highness,” called the gray-haired, ponytailed knight, “should I handle this?”

Bram shook his head.

“The Sovereign once taught me”—he stepped forward so that he was now within striking distance from the kneeling prisoner—“that the one who passes judgement should also be ready to carry out the punishment…”

“I-I swear to be l-loyal!”

Alaric kept begging, but Ser Edwin pressed his hands against the young man’s back, ensuring his prince had access to the prisoner’s neck.

“I’ll s-serve, I swear—”

It happened in a flash; a sword was swung, and a head fell off.

“The dead cannot swear…and thus ends the noble house of von Galen,” Rowan said with a finality, which, to Bram’s ears, sounded like a fitting eulogy for the dead.

Gasps reverberated across the hilltop, but no one protested Alaric’s execution. Not even the former soldiers of von Galen’s household who’d served Alaric in the battle against Scarfang’s wearg tribe. A few of them were gathered in a line nearby to witness their young master’s end with only Ser Lief Coulson guarding them. The stout, plump-faced, curly-haired knight would be enough to guard them though, for none of von Galen’s former soldiers seemed willing to die with Alaric.

The hand that swung Dusk’s blade trembled, but Bram kept his guilt from showing on his face. His gaze, which kept its determined look, zoned in on a familiar short-haired woman with a scar on her left cheek.

“What will you do now, Lieutenant Ada?” he asked.

Apprehension was clear on Ada’s face, but her voice rang clear when she said, “We will serve…if you’ll have us.”

Earlier, when he’d decided to execute Alaric, Bram had wondered what he would do with the rest of von Galen’s soldiers whose number—a scant fifty or so—still crowded the dungeons underneath Bastille’s barracks.

Ser Anthony had cautioned restraint, reminding Bram that turning enemies into allies was a mark of an excellent commander.

Rowan had agreed, adding, “There’s no need for a bloodbath. Simply kill the leader and convert his forces to our cause.”

It was sound advice that Bram intended to follow, which is why he now said, “Serve me well and faithfully, and you’ll come to see the end of House von Galen as a stroke of fortune.”

At the prince’s words, the shoulders of von Galen’s former soldiers lost their tension, and grateful faces spread among them. At least for today, they received a stay of execution, and that gave them hope. Of course, they were unaware that Bram had many plans for them—plans involving the sort of intense work that made one spit out blood and cause sturdy folk to collapse from fatigue. In a few months, these former soldiers of von Galen might just wish he’d killed them today.

Meanwhile, Ada, the same woman Bram had met by Bellen’s gate more than a month ago, knelt on the ground and proclaimed, “You won’t regret it, Your Highness.”

Following her lead, the other former soldiers of von Galen knelt to the ground and swore similar oaths to Atlan’s seventh prince.

“Don’ ye worry, Prince Bram,” Ser Lief called. “I’ll train ‘em meself. Make sure to let ‘em know who their lord and savior is.”

A month ago, Ser Lief and the rest of the knights of the Order of the Peerless Heart had avoided talking to Bram despite being charged with guarding him. It had been an uncomfortable arrangement for everyone. Now, however, with Bram’s success against The Impure, the knights of his household were beginning to see him in a new light, and though there was still some awkwardness between them, they seemed more eager to engage with their lord.

Ser Lief thumped his chest. “Ingrain it in their bones, I will.”

“I’ll look forward to their transformation, Ser Lief,” Bram said, nodding.

Of course, the prince’s decision to spare von Galen’s former soldiers was no simple act of mercy, but doubled as a show for the bespectacled, green-eyed woman standing between Ser Aveline and Ser Bennu. It was Bram’s tactful way of telling Baroness Ursula that he was willing to deal with former enemies who were also willing to work with him.

“You’re looking a little pale, Baroness,” Bram noted.

“I’m not used to watching boys die, Your Highness,” Baroness Ursula replied.

Bram observed the slight discomfort in her look. She seemed honest about that, at least. Though, from the fact that neither Rowan nor Ser Anthony managed to get anything useful from her interrogation two nights ago, the prince guessed that the baroness was a more skilled diplomat than Vicomte Henry had been. As the northern nobles’ representative to his court, Bram couldn’t trust anything she said.

“Will you go back to the north now?”

“Not until my task here is done, Your Highness.”

“And what task was that again?”

“Peace.”

Bram’s eyes searched her face, but he could find no hint of a lie.

“If this is true, then I would welcome it…and you.” His gaze drifted past the baroness, moving toward the river which snaked across his shire like a glittering serpent heading northward. “But your words and Rhyneland’s actions don’t seem to align…”

“I won’t deny that there are those in Rhyneland seeking a,” she paused—no doubt to think of a more appetizing word than ‘war’—and then said, “a change to the regime, but there are just as many of us who seek to work with you and find common ground.”

Her face, voice, and gestures suggested a genuine plea.

“We have enough enemies outside our borders, and your family,” Baroness Ursula once again paused to find the right words, “they will use this internal strife to weaken your position as an heir candidate, and Rhyneland will also suffer from their interference…”

Bram couldn’t help but agree with Baroness Ursula because there was precedent for her claims. Among the twelve kingdoms of the Imperium, Lotharin had suffered the most from the War of Thirteen, and not one of the other kingdoms had come to their aid. This forced Lotharin to weaken so completely that many in the Sovereign’s court believed it could never rise again. It’s why they’d given Bram his deadline. They didn’t believe he could undo nearly seventeen years of constant decline since he himself was a cursed existence.

While musing about Lotharin’s weakened state, Bram’s gaze drifted toward Bastille.

With the River Rhyne brushing against its southern side, the white-walled city rose atop a low craggy hill, its many battlements evoking the shape of a four-tiered cake. Each tier represented the districts of Lowtown, Midtown, and Hightown, with Bram’s Bastion nestled on the hilltop whose slope was shaped like a single-edged blade, giving birth to the cliff that plummeted down into Midtown’s busy thoroughfare. White towers capped in conical roofs of teal tiles rose above sturdy parapets and walls that had endured despite the shire’s lack of funds to maintain them. The main gate—thick double iron doors rising thirty feet tall—was wide open, welcoming the visitors who poured into the city. The emerald yew tree of Lotharin rose over the main gate, its white banners raised high and fluttering with the wind.

At first glance, Bastille seemed like a prosperous city, but those who’d been inside its walls knew the truth. Despite its clean interior, the city wasn’t prosperous. A clear sign of this was the lack of skyships in Bastille’s sky. Skyships weren’t just used for protection. They were also proof of a burgeoning market. Not having them crowding up the airspace meant merchants throughout the Imperium lacked faith in Bastille. Indeed, like most of the great cities of Lotharin, Bastille was burdened with massive debt. One needed only to look at its people—their worn clothes, the ever-present fatigue on their faces, the sagging of their shoulders—to know this truth.

The disparity of wealth didn’t help either. For while the commoners of Lowtown struggled to make ends meet, the nobles who nested inside their comfy manses in Hightown squeezed the commoners dry so that many of them could barely put food on their tables or lie with roofs over their heads.

Bram planned to change this economic disparity by giving the commoners new opportunities, but he couldn’t do this alone, and certainly not while a rebellion might be breathing down his neck soon.

“Separate, our kingdom might fall prey…but together, we can weather the storm,” Baroness Ursula declared.

The baroness’ words caused Bram’s heart to flutter because they were the very words he longed to hear… A united kingdom, oh what wonders they could build if such a future came to pass. He saw it often in his dreams, a world teeming with innovation and industry, whose cities scraped against the sky, unbound by the will of fickle gods.

“My Prince,” Rowan said, her tone soft.

Bram blinked.

He glanced around and saw that only the two of them remained on the hilltop. The headless corpse had been taken away, though the blood that stained the grass remained to remind Bram of what he’d done.

“Did everyone leave already…?”

In his mind, Bram wondered how he must have looked to those who saw him so lost in thought.

“I—”

“It must have been an interesting dream,” Rowan interrupted.

Bram’s cheeks flared red.

“Not to worry. I made it so no one noticed that you, in Bridget’s words”—she smiled—“checked out for a while.”

“Ugh,” Bram sighed.

“Ser Anthony took care of everything else,” she continued, “which leaves us free to leave for Reise on schedule.”

As Rowan said this, Bram noticed his auto-carriage already waiting for them at the bottom of the hill ready to take them back to the Players’ Campus at the edge of Reise.

“Right, it’s time for the feast…” He couldn’t help grinning at her. “By the way — what did you think of the recordings Bridget sent us?”

“Inspiring.” She grinned back. “Though this trailer video is still incomplete, ‘tis still a clarion call to adventure, one many will answer.”