Amy shrugged, her expression a mix of boredom and apathy, “Did you need something?”
I didn’t think this would be easy.
Margaret still felt a tingling under her flesh and a vertigo that pulled at her head and ears. Focusing on Amy was a challenge, but she needed to do this.
“Can we talk? Maybe outside?”
Amihan shrugged a second time, then gestured toward the hanger doors. Margaret took the invitation and began walking with Amy at her flank. She didn’t look over her shoulder, but she could feel the one-eyed boy skulking back and following them. Margaret didn’t want to dive into his mind for fear Amy was watching, but he was simply odd. Utterly uninclined, he recalled a particularly brave rat following a fat barn cat, fearless and curious.
Stormair didn’t sleep. Outside there were vehicles rotating between shop and roster hangers, along with patrols and mixed operations. The air was cool and sharp, and raised goose flesh along Margaret’s arms.
“Only you would show up to a military banquet dressed like a whore,” Amy said, reaching the tarmac that Margaret occupied, her arms crossed, face set in stone. Over her black shirt and ivory slacks, Amy wore an overcoat made of dyed and cured leather, a shade of red darker than blood. It was frayed at the lapels and shoulders, but not faded.
“Let’s call truce,” Margaret sighed, palm pressed to her temple as she turned and stepped closer to Amy than the two had stood at the southern gate a few days earlier, “I’m apologizing.”
Amy’s eyes narrowed, but her expression didn’t change, “What would you have to apologize for?”
Margaret glanced up from Amy’s eyes, back at the one-eyed boy who stood by the hanger doors, watching, then back, “For my behavior, at the gates.”
“What would you have to apologize for?” Amy repeated herself, dropping her arms, lifting palms to the sky and offering a smile, if a disingenuous one, “You changed my diapers, that means you have the right to speak to me, treat me, as you please.”
The whiskey she’d hammered earlier was at her head and Margaret fought against slurring, “If you’d just listen, Amy, I’m trying to fix this.”
Amy laughed, then shook her head, pausing, and letting her granite expression fall away, part of the little girl Margaret raised was looking back at her again.
“You know, when we were kids, you’d just look at me. As if looking at me was the worst thing you had to experience. You smiled when you looked at Ramona, you laughed with her, played with her, brushed her hair. Is it any wonder that she grew up to be a whore just like you?”
Margaret didn’t have an answer. Amy’s smirks reminded her so much of Maggi, and despite everything, it made Margaret’s skin crawl, “At least Ramona didn’t get knocked up and give away her own child.”
Why did I say that?
Margaret bit down on her lower lip, taking a half step back, her anger only mitigated by inebriation.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Mayy?” Amy didn’t even look offended, as though the accusation was lost on her like a bad joke, “Ramona had a child when she was sixteen. Dad made her give it up for adoption because her son would be an illegitimate Lopez.”
“What the fuck?” Margaret’s jaw slipped and she shook her head, “That can’t be right.”
Amy raised her hands, “Yes, it’s right. Ask dad, when he gets here. Ask him. Your favorite niece is the only one who ever let you down.”
How many times had Margaret thought it? How many times had she said it? The moments came back in a flash, every time she’d disparaged Amihan and called Ramona her favorite in the same breath.
Amy laughed, looking down at the ground, “You know what, Mayy? I know my grandmother wasn’t a good person, dad told me stories. He told me about the time that she beat you for taking him beyond the walls of Crafton. He thought it was funny. He laughed, and he laughed so hard, that he never noticed I didn’t. When I went to war with him, I wanted to prove to you, that I was better than Maggi Lopez, and better than my father.” Amy looked away, and to Margaret’s surprise her eyes had welled up with tears that flickered with reflections of Stormair. “That wasn’t enough, was it? You could only see Maggi when you looked at me.”
All the tumblers that had fallen earlier shattered in Margaret’s heart. One by one, popping in a cascade of shattered glass. Regret wasn’t something Margaret did, she never looked back, she never dreamed of doing anything over.
Except, that was, right now.
“I’m sorry,” Margaret whispered, arms extending, to embrace Amy.
Amy retreated this time, grinding the palms of her hands into her eyes. She wore heavy shadow, charcoal, just like her grandmother. The pitch was now smeared downward.
“Too late. Years too late.”
Amy stopped, and her face tensed. She sniffed back mucus and pulled her coat straight. The two watched each other for a moment, then Amy turned to walk away.
“Wait,” was all Margaret said, the most impotent word that she’d ever let slip.
I should have kept my mouth shut.
“No,” Amy repeated, pausing in her turn, words dripping venom, “I’ll be a better person than you. I won’t mock Ramona again for her choices, her whoring. At least I can trust her. At least she told me about you.”
The footfalls of Amy’s boots were soft and certain, her hands relaxed, she wasn't angry or hateful, she was simply done with her aunt.
To that degree, Margaret was done also. There was nothing left to discuss. She could spend the remaining years of her life regretting the way she’d treated Amihan Lopez, and what would it change? There was no making this right, and if there had been, Margaret had washed away that opportunity at the gates of Stockton.
I hope she succeeds, Margaret thought, sadly, I hope she is a better person than me.
Margaret waited for Amihan to reach the hanger doors, hook and lure for her one-eyed adjunct. Dinner would be served shortly, and Margaret would formally retire her title in front of the 3rd Army and 9th Battalion officers.
It was only as Margaret reached the doors that she wondered what it was that Amy had meant when she said, “At least I can trust her. At least she told me about you.”
11:00pm February 27th, 39 Veilfall
Stormair, California
“What was that?” Townsend spoke softly, below anyone’s hearing as Margaret stepped into the hanger.
“It was me being a fool,” Margaret answered, her head swimming and her chest wracked with the weight of Amy’s words, “I’ll explain later.”
Townsend wasn’t happy with that answer. Margaret saw his jaw clench, then he looked back to the officers in the room. Dinner was being set to the tables by several civilian servants. They wore white slacks like the Antecedent officers, but their shirts were simple affairs of cotton with shoulder stitching and naked arms. There were large platters full of seasoned and stuffed hard-boiled eggs, at least two roasted boar, and smaller plates with boiled pheasants. Even for Antecedent officers, this level of opulence was uncommon.
As she walked away, Margaret heard him again, “Lady,” his voice louder, deeper. His eyes were serious, more than at any time he’d looked at her prior.
“I’ll explain later.” Margaret bit back, lower lip fallen, teeth exposed.
The two watched each other, testing their wills, refusing to blink or glance away. Townsend’s pulse was elevated, Margaret could feel it at her temples, and he was on edge, vigilant. Something had unsettled him.
Fuck. He wouldn’t talk to me this way for no reason.
Margaret offered an open palm to Townsend, “Give me a twig. I’m listening.”
Townsend stepped closer, hands fumbling in his jacket pockets, withdrawing his cigarette tin and lighter, “The 9th Battalion officers aren’t acting right.”
Margaret didn’t move closer, but as Townsend spoke, she spun up thin, azoic defenses around him. Amy would hardly notice, but it would keep his thoughts from broadcasting around the room, as intense as th
ey were.
“I don’t know what that means,” Margaret took the offered twig and allowed Townsend to light it for her. It was also a modest peace offering, she’d almost walked away, almost dismissed him outright. A poor witch assumed she knew more than a trained, veteran officer. It seemed to Margaret, this was true of paramours as well.
“Antecedent officers follow basic old-world military protocols. They’re not saluting their superiors in the 3rd Army. They’re rude, in a way that a commander would never abide.”
“Okay,” Margaret tipped her head side to side, inhaling the hot tobacco, “Amy and I are having a family tiff. Maybe she asked them to be rude?”
Townsend surveyed the room, chewing at the air, but not withdrawing his own cigarette, “That’s not how we work. Those officers know something.”
“They know I’m about to retire, and they know their boss and I are at odds.” Margaret inhaled again, “But, take whatever precautions you consider appropriate, Lieutenant General. Consider it my final order as lead battlewitch of the Antecedent Empire.”
Margaret reached down for Townsend’s left hand, feeling it relax, gloved fingers running across his palm. She pulled his arm up and carefully placed the partially smoked cigarette between his fingers.
“We’ll watch your back,” Townsend said, softly, as Margaret turned away.
The only individuals gathered around the banquet tables now were setting utensils and food. Some of them were lighting oil lamps, positioned every other plate. Margaret slipped between them, and several women backed away, noticing what she was, if not who she was.
Grabbing a plate of lacquered china, along with a heavy steel spoon, Margaret held the two over her head, hammering the spoon to dish, hard enough to create an echoing ding, ding, ding sound in the hanger.
One by one, officers of 3rd Army and 9th Battalion turned to watch Margaret.
Some held tumblers, filled with liquor. Others nibbled at pheasant wings that they’d torn off preemptively, excited for dinner. Their eyes scrubbed up her legs, and skirt, all the way past her corset to her arms and the plate she held. Margaret could see the same 9th Battalion officer who’d contained Eris earlier. She stood near the back, looking as if she was in a great deal of pain. Both Amy’s adjuncts watched, along with Townsend’s, who was skulking low, ignoring her, talking to his own people.
“Officers!” Margaret shouted, “Officers of the 3rd and 1st Army, pay heed to me now!”
With their attention focused, Margaret slowly lowered dish and spoon, chewing at her lower lip. She didn’t want it to be over, she didn’t want to stop serving; but far more than that, she didn’t want to keep fighting. The ways of Stockton, the comfortable life of House Owens had spoiled her, and the idea of settling down was every bit as seductive as the eyes Townsend held for her under his brow.
This is it.
“Tonight, we celebrate the end of an era. My mother helped found the Antecedent States, and her son founded the Antecedent Empire. For two decades we fought to conquer a continent, and we succeeded. With that success, I am formally announcing my resignation as lead battlewitch to Alexander Lopez and his generals.” Margaret’s voice projected around the room, sturdy, calm, and strong. “I’ve fought next to you. I’ve buried your brothers. I’ve laid in hospital beds near you. All of that’s over now. The war engine of the Antecedency is quiet tonight, and for the first time since the Collapse, real peace may be known in this land.”
With hands raised, the hanger began to applaud her. Even the 9th Battalion officers joined them, sincere in their offerings. But, as the room’s cheering grew silent, one man stepped forward, hands low, and his one eye watching with disparagement.
“That’s a false speak there, yeah?” Amy’s adjunct asked, “Your mom, our Emperor’s mom, she’s not likewise blood as you, yeah?”
Silence.
“No,” Margaret swallowed after a moment, answering the one-eyed boy, “No, I’m not the true born daughter of Maggi Lopez.”
The adjunct nodded, smarmy and insolent with both youth and arrogance, the big rat turned from curious, to predator, “No likewise blood, no likewise at all. Why would you false speak?” The boy was using a modern form of English, rough and mumbled, he was a step below Margaret’s own lazy pronunciations.
“Shut up pop-eye,” a 3rd Army officer shouted. He was a Captain, a few years younger than Townsend and one of the Saint Louis veterans, “Lady Mayhem has earned the right to call anyone whatever she pleases. With her blessing I’ll call you to the ground now and feed you that other eye.” He was pointing to the tarmac as he spoke, so angry that his mouth was sputtering.
The one-eyed boy raised his right hand and gestured for the older man to come forward, his chin jutting out. Before the situation could become more heated, Amihan herself moved forward, grabbed the dinner plate from Margaret’s fingers and smashed it the concrete floor with both hands. Green and white shards exploded, flying so far that little of the plate remained visible.
The hanger was silent again, servants backing off, sneaking away toward the shadows.
“Lady Mayhem has always called Maggi Lopez her mother,” Amy’s voice was louder, rawer. She’d been educated to speak above boys like her one-eyed adjunct, “There’s no crime here, no false speak. Maggi Lopez raised Mayhem since she was a child.”
Surprised at this Margaret spoke, “Thank you.”
When Amy turned to Margaret her hand was raised, finger pointed down. Her face was twisted up into rage, and her eyes didn’t register Margaret as a flesh and blood person anymore, least of all family.
“That never gave you the right to call yourself Margaret Lopez.”
Margaret pressed herself back toward the table, mouth open, stammering, “I never said that.”
“You did,” Amy fulminated, and Margaret realized that the young woman’s hands were free of gloves, “You told the former Owens queen that you wanted to be Margaret Lopez, you told her you would make your brother call you that. Make me call you that. My own sister is your confessor!”
All the plates may as well have been smashed.
Each word at Amy’s angry report was a hammer strike. She remembered Ramona nodding, her dark hair pasted across her face, “You’ll tell him you’re Margaret Lopez. You know he’ll hate it. So will my sister.”
The one-eyed adjunct reached for his sidearm, thumbing latch free and raising it for Margaret’s skull. Every single 9th Battalion officer did the same, no racks to slide, rounds already chambered, holding weapons on the 3rd Army. Margaret could no longer see Townsend, and she didn’t have time to worry about him now. He hadn’t become a Lieutenant General through an inability to plan.
Every officer held their breath and weighed their actions. Margaret was cycling barriers up, green sparks whipped off tarmac as walls erected themselves around her. Some of those barriers bounced off Amy’s, they stood so close.
“It's true. I wanted to be Maggi’s legitimate daughter but drawing a gun on me for a childhood fantasy I shared in private is how your adjunct will die.”
The look on Amy’s face was one of intimate hatred, “You told Aurora Owens you’d displace my father for the throne.”
“No!” Margaret shouted back, pressing her molars together painfully.
“Call my sister a liar,” Amy nodded, holding hands away from her coat. The air was beginning to heat at her fingertips. Margaret could see her caramelized nails and blistered fingers, scarred just like the hands of Maggi Lopez, “Call Ramona a liar. Say it. Tell me my own sister lied when she cried and asked me to protect our father. Call her a liar when she begged me to spare your life!”
The situation was now beyond anyone’s control. Had Amihan spoken with Aurora Owens? Was Aurora Owens even alive now? Who else had Ramona talked to? What the fuck was Ramona doing?
“I will call your whore-sister a liar!” One of the 3rd Army officers stepped forward, a tall man in his early thirties with blazing green eyes and dusty brown hair, ignoring t
he two guns leveled at his skull, “I will call out anyone who cries traitor of Lady Mayhem, the only true battlewitch the Empire has known!”
Amy’s eyes rolled to meet the officer, her head never shifting from Margaret. She didn’t raise her hands, or snap fingers like Maggi, she didn’t speak words of power or perform any rituals.
She simply stared.
The officer was Captain Henry Francs, he’d joined the 3rd Army in Omaha. During the siege of Fort Collins, he’d found his squad stranded behind enemy trenches. Just like Amy had saved her adjunct’s life, so too had Margaret walked into suppressing fire to spread her terrible wings and save Captain Francs, as well as his men. That night she’d fucked him to taste the wild gratitude on his lips. She’d walked his mind, and knew he’d lost his virginity to a step-sister, that his father had run him from their home and into the Antecedent military for it.
The Captain’s eyes had gone wild with insanity, he clawed at his lips with curling fingers, ripping off skin that Margaret had kissed the night after Fort Collins. The saliva in his mouth was superheated, boiling, steam erupting from his mouth and nose, burning his cheeks from the inside out, scalding his lungs, eating away the inside of his throat. His face had begun to blister, red lesions turning pustule. Yellow syrup leaking down flesh, twisted and pinched like pork chops set before flame, sizzling in fat.
He groped for his throat, trying to breathe, leaning forward, and vomited forth his own tongue, twisted red, and half a foot long. It hit the tarmac like cooked liver, steaming and bubbling, jerking from the heat.
Amy turned back to Margaret. Henry Francs wasn’t dead yet, but he couldn’t even cry out in pain as he slowly suffocated.
“You came to me, tonight, asking me to forgive you. Did you think Ramona loved you so? That she’d keep your secret? That you could convince me to back your scheme, against my father?”
Both Amy and Margaret were using battlefield defenses now, sparks dancing across concrete, and patchwork lines of energy emerging from unseen magic into a tangible field around them both, lit windows covered in dust and grime. Margaret’s world had fallen out from under her, she hadn’t even mourned for Henry Francs when she began to consider how she was going to kill the niece who looked so much like her mother.
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