The Dawn of the End

by Kristen Ashley

  It was in True’s turret, as True had demanded his man be close.

  They did not take him to the hospital because it was a longer distance from the temple where he’d been wounded.

  But regardless, they had an infirmary in the castle that rivaled any hospital, so he’d been seen to as best as they could.

  It was just that nothing could be done.

  It was with these heavy thoughts, and a dozen others, that he passed the nurse that sat outside the door and entered his friend’s room to see his wife indeed in a chair by his bedside, slumped down, head resting on the wing of the chair, fast asleep.

  But his captain was wide awake.

  “She needs her bed,” Alfie rasped.

  True made his way to Alfie’s side, stopping just beyond Farah’s chair.

  He looked down at her, then looked to Alfie.

  “You need to rest,” he replied. “Shall I call for a sleeping draught?”

  Alfie shook his head.

  “Alfie—”

  “Get your wife to bed, True.”

  “Alfie—”

  His friend’s face got hard.

  “I will not make you make that decision. I would never do that to you. I will do it myself.”

  True knew exactly what he was referring to, and thus bent swiftly to his friend. “We will speak of this later.”

  “You claim king,” Alfie stated.

  “Yes.”

  “He will abdicate?”

  True nodded.

  “Then you must change the Soldier’s Poison, my king. Do not make the soldier ask permission from his commanding officer. Allow him to do it himself.”

  “He always has that choice.”

  “There is no honor in that.”

  “Alfie—”

  “Allow him to do it himself and have honor.”

  “The point of making him ask his commanding officer is why we’re having this conversation, brother. You won’t want to ask. You won’t want to make me make that decision. And if you don’t ask, I won’t lose you. And if you don’t ask, you will have the time to learn how to live life differently.”

  “You’ve already lost me.”

  “I’m standing right here talking to you.”

  “I’ll never stand again.”

  True fought his flinch and straightened, declaring, “It is too soon.”

  “It is too late.”

  “You are my brother and I will speak true. To stop these thoughts and your pain, I would have taken that arrow for you, Alfie, doing it on my wedding day.”

  Alfie visibly ground his teeth for he knew True did not speak false.

  “Do not make me lose you,” True whispered. “I need you.”

  “I’m useless.”

  “Not even a little bit.”

  Alfie looked away, his head ticked, then he muttered, “Hullo.”

  True turned and looked down at his bride.

  She was awake and watching them.

  When Farah saw she had their attention, she said to Alfie, “I need you too. If you’re not around, who’s going to stop Wallace and Luther from bickering?”

  To his shock, this made Alfie emit a guttural grunt of laughter before he started coughing and then taking deep breaths to handle the pain.

  “Call for a sleeping draught, my darling,” True murmured to his wife.

  Farah rose and moved to the door to call the nurse outside.

  “We will talk later,” True said quietly to Alfie. “Much later.”

  Alfie stared at him a moment before he looked to the ceiling.

  Farah came back to True’s side as the nurse bustled about a table bearing clean dressings, vials, flasks and beakers.

  “We’ll leave you after you take that draught,” True promised.

  Alfie said nothing.

  But when the nurse approached, he struggled, wincing fiercely, to pull himself up and took the glass from her himself.

  The nurse’s eyes darted to True and Farah pressed close to his side, but True did not intervene.

  Alfie needed to learn he could do things for himself, and he might as well start now.

  When he handed the glass back to the nurse and collapsed again to the bed, she snapped, “Well, I cannot say I very much like you possibly pulling out your sutures simply so you can drink down a sleeping draught.”

  Alfie blinked at her.

  She looked at Farah, rolled her eyes and kept snapping, “Men. Worse, soldiers. Ulk.”

  She then stomped to the table, put down the glass, turned around, and asked True, “Aught else, my prince?”

  It was then True saw she was rather comely.

  And she had a lovely figure.

  Though her disposition, especially for a nurse, was odd.

  “Uh, no,” he answered.

  “How about you?” she asked Alfie. “Is there anything I can do for you? Say, bring the tinctures over to your bedside table so you can mix your own draught when you need it?”

  “Would you let me do that?” Alfie queried.

  “Bloody no,” she bit, threw up both hands like she thought he’d gone completely mad, then stormed out.

  He felt Farah coming up on her toes beside him and then heard her whisper, “Would it be bad form to laugh?”

  True watched Alfie’s astonished face as he stared at the door the nurse closed behind her and he answered in a whisper, “Maybe we should make the hall at least.”

  She took his hand and squeezed.

  She let him go in order to approach Alfie and kiss his cheek, but thankfully not do something that might upset him, like pull up his covers and tuck him in.

  When his wife moved away, True bent and wrapped his fingers around Alfie’s forearm and he did this tight.

  “We’ll talk more tomorrow,” he murmured.

  Alfie sighed and then nodded.

  True led his wife out of the room and to the stairs that would lead them up to their chambers, both of them, prince and princess, soon to be king and queen, dipping their chins respectfully to a bloody nurse for fear of what she might do if they didn’t.

  On this thought, True was halfway to starting to laugh perhaps a little madly, and they were halfway up the steps, when his wife asked, “Do you know your mother’s maid?”

  “Helga?”

  She looked to him. “Yes, that’s her name.”

  “Yes,” he confirmed unnecessarily. “What about her?”

  Her face softened even as her gait stayed steady and her eyes remained on him.

  “She is suffering, True. I’ve seen her twice today. It’s clear she cared deeply for your mother. I know you are busy, and grieve yourself, but if you could find some time to have a word with her?”

  Helga did care about his mother. As much as anyone could be with Mercy, Helga and she were thick as thieves.

  He should have thought of her earlier.

  “I will speak to her tomorrow,” he said as they made the landing of their chambers.

  “I knew you would,” she murmured.

  He walked them through the doors and closed them behind him.

  “Did you learn anything during the interrogations?” she asked, not heading to her dressing room, instead standing before a sofa and watching him.

  Ah, his fierce Farah.

  “Darling, you took an arrow today,” he reminded her.

  “I know, but—”

  “It would please me greatly if you would finally get some rest.”

  “I would rest easier if I knew those who took your mother received the treatment they deserved and will lead us to stop anything more happening.”

  He knew, in that moment, there would be times in their marriage where he would wish his wife was far less intelligent.

  Fortunately, there would be vastly more times when he was grateful that she was so wise.

  Thus, he settled in and shared, “Every one of them is Dellish.” He then shook his head. “But they are most curious. It is clear they all embarked on their mission fully awa
re they would be captured, interrogated, and in the end, executed. I’ve never known a man, one who is not a trained spy, who enters a mission with this knowledge and does it willingly.”

  “This is most disturbing,” she whispered.

  “It is,” he agreed. “But there is a dichotomy that might work in our favor. You see, at first, they did what it was clear they were told to do. What the men who were tortured by Mars and his Trusted in the necropolis were told to do. Say nothing. Except, in the case of the men at the Keep, the occasional ‘long live The Rising.’”

  “How does that work in our favor?”

  True moved to her and carefully took her in his arms.

  When he had her where he very much liked her, he explained.

  “It works in our favor for they are not trained spies. They are not even trained soldiers. I think if Mars spent more time at it in Fire City, we would have learned more. As we had more prisoners, and more time, and some watched what was done to others and could only think the same or worse would be done to them, we learned that you nor I were the targets. Only Mother was. And this was why so many arrows went so many places. Ten arrows missed entirely. And what hit you, Bram, Florian, Alfie were not intended for those targets.”

  Farah said nothing for it was unnecessary to remind him that six did hit their target and some of the others did serious damage, even if it was not what was intended.

  True did not touch on that either.

  “They may have trained in their aim, but they were not trained archers,” he continued. “And they may not have leaked vital secrets of this Rising, but all of them eventually talked. And we learned that they were all recruited through Go’Doan temples, or Go’Doan priests, but this Rising is clearly not officially of the Go’Doan religion. Indeed, they speak of the overarching faith in a sneering manner. Thus, it is a subset of the Go’Doan who have an aggressive mission that does not coincide with that of the Dome City, making it not truly Go’Doan at all.”

  “Then this is good,” she noted.

  “Yes, though we cannot tell who is of this Rising and who is Go’Doan, which will serve to make things difficult. We also learned that information within this Rising is highly compartmentalized, something else that will make things difficult. Their leader, the one who recruited them, called them to this mission, trained them, strategized it and carried it through, was the one who fled and died in the fleeing. He was a priest of the Go’Doan. They know not names of others. And the two priests taken, who likely know more, refused to say anything at all.”

  “And this is bad,” she murmured.

  He gave her a careful squeeze. “Not exactly. First, they are not soldiers. This is definitely in our favor. And it leads me to believe whoever is at the top of this is not trained in that manner, which could also be in our favor. I do not think they realize they declared war, in a sense, back at Catrame Palace, and definitely that declaration was made today. And you cannot win a war if you don’t realize you’re waging one.”

  “Are you sure they do not think this?”

  He shook his head. “The only thing I’m sure of at this time is that this is not a house of cards. You can’t pull one from the bottom and it all comes tumbling down. The hammer has to fall at the top. Thus, we must find our way to the top.”

  “It does seem this is true,” she muttered.

  He gave her another careful squeeze and a small smile before he went on, “Second, they are not Go’Doan, so although they recruit amongst the people of the realms in which they serve, if we can disseminate information, citizens can be made aware, or even come forward with information.”

  “This would be most useful.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “And last, it is far away, but it could be even more useful considering the lower downs know little, thus we need information about what is happening higher up. And Lorenz, Mars’s captain in Fire City, has a priest who is formerly of this Rising, though this faction does not know this is ‘formerly.’ And he’s willing to learn what he can of their plans and share it.”

  Farah brightened, but asked, “Can he be trusted?”

  “I do not know. I know Lorenz trusts him and Mars trusts Lorenz. So I take heart in that.”

  She nodded before she said, “But it does not seem much to take heart in when so much is being lost.”

  “The priests of this Rising in the temple in Fire City fled after the attack. Some of them have been tracked down and they await Mars’s return in the necropolis. But they do not await their interrogations. Lorenz and Guard are already interrogating them.”

  Her brows went up.

  True kept speaking.

  “Sadly, however, it seems, thus far, it’s proving most of them are underlings, not those in authority. But it’s clear with Carrington’s placement in this very castle that these plans have been brewing for a long time. And we’re getting a picture that perhaps there are some zealots higher up who are calling the shots and doing it poorly. And now that plans are being carried out, their followers are finding they’re not quite as loyal as they believed, what with men in pieces in Fire City, or walking into the tar pits. Or what they will see happen to Carrington, which will be grisly, and the other traitors publicly hung.”

  “So you don’t think they will feel some triumph at what they achieved today?” she asked quietly.

  “I think citizens of this city still line the streets silently in mourning for their queen,” he answered. “I think as gruesome as it will be, there will be cheers at Carrington’s execution and the traitors will be led to the gallows with the Dellish spitting on them as they go. I think today, Chu capitalized on the fact nineteen archers expected to be captured, but their leader alone tried to escape. And Chu made it very clear to those in that torture chamber that they were sacrificed while their leader expected to get away.”

  “Oh my,” she said quietly. “That was very clever.”

  “Yes. And Chu had further instigated a situation where there was no small amount of animosity of those underlings toward the priests who Chu also made it clear were higher ups who in some way got them in their present position but were saying not a word to get them out of it.”

  “That is promising,” Farah noted.

  He nodded. “Thus, I think anyone of this Rising will watch this and wonder how deep their loyalties lie. I cannot tell the future, sweets. I just feel all that was lost today in my marrow. My mother’s life and Alfie’s legs will not go unavenged in every way I can avenge them. That is what I know.”

  “And I will be queen on the morrow, the shortest reign of princess ever, most likely,” she remarked, probably to lighten the discussion.

  “You will be,” he said softly. “However, the declaration may come tomorrow, but our official coronations will wait until after this current business is sorted. Mother’s pyre burned, her ashes at rest. Carrington and the traitors dispatched. It will be a few weeks.”

  “I am in no hurry,” she mumbled.

  “Farah.”

  Her eyes focused on him.

  He gave her all she needed to know for the now.

  “Cassius has had news of not a small amount of unrest in Airen,” he informed her.

  “Oh, Gods, no,” she whispered.

  “I sense he has not told me the fullness of it in thoughtfulness to all that’s happened today. But I’m also sensing he and Elena will need to leave.”

  She nodded again.

  “Mars has promised his aid to Cassius, but he also knows this Rising has a foothold in his own realm. We might lose him too.”

  She bit her lower lip but again nodded.

  “I suspect Aramus will back Cassius. Frey Drakkar and Apollo Ulfr have vowed to assist Wodell, but they did this before they knew the unrest in Airen. What I’m saying is, with Mother gone, it might well be you and me and my men who take this on.”

  “And the gnomes. The fairies. The pixies. And all the many people who love you.”

  He stared down at her.

  “We
suffered a grave loss today, True. You suffered a grave loss. And there is one thing I’ve learned about Wodell in the time I’ve spent here. Your people will not abide that. Not for them. Not for Mercy. But most of all, not for you.”

  She pressed closer and kept speaking.

  “Cassius may go, and Mars may go, Aramus too, and I will be sad for their leaving, mostly because my friends will leave with them and because of why they all go. But we will prevail.”

  “I hope you are right,” he said.

  “I know I am,” she replied.

  He smiled down at her and then noted, “Now you have had what you requested, will you humor your husband and finally lie down?”

  Her face grew soft. “I think maybe I can do that.”

  He was relieved, and not only because she damn well needed to lie down and get some bloody rest, but because there was one thing he had planned for their wedding day that he still fully intended to do.

  It was the most important, even if it was arguable that it was what he was most looking forward to doing.

  The other would happen when she had not but hours before taken an arrow through her body.

  True bent to kiss her forehead before he released her and put a hand on the small of her back to scoot her toward her dressing rooms, saying, “If you need me, call.”

  “Servants are always at the ready in this castle,” she murmured, clearly missing his fingers at her laces and moving in the direction he’d aimed her.

  True headed to his own dressing room, wondering if Helga would wish to take on the new queen.

  He’d assess her state the next day and ask when it seemed she would be open to such a request.

  He was in his sleep pants and stoking the fire when his wife moved through her new boudoir into their bedchamber.

  She wore a relatively demure, but very Dellish nightgown.

  She looked beautiful.

  But she said, “I had something else planned to wear for this occasion. Sadly,” she indicated her arm in its sling with her other hand, “it will have to wait.”

  Sadly, indeed.

  But there was that something that would not wait any longer, and as Farah moved to her side of the bed, True followed her.

  “Love,” he called when she pulled the covers back.