The Triumphant Return

by N M Zoltack

  “But my battle will not result in my death,” she protested.

  “Only if you are victorious,” he whispered.

  “You doubt our ability to win?”

  "How did she learn to fight like that?" Ulric asked. "Some of her slides, her sword position… It reminds me of the Vincanans I've faced."

  “Yes, she was trained by them,” Rosalynne spat out bitterly.

  “You see how she bested a knight who had many more years of training than her one? That is what we are up against. She has always been athletic, has she not?”

  “She only ever danced before,” Rosalynne grumbled.

  “For hours with grace and poise and strength.”

  “There is not strength required for dancing.”

  Ulric shrugged and admitted, “I have not danced much at all, but dancing for hours meant she had endurance already and strong legs. She is capable, Rosalynne.”

  “She proved her worth against one knight, but this was not a battle. Her life was not on the line, and—”

  “Look around. There are about fifty of us here. The knight would not want to lose purposely to the princess, not when he knows this was a test for her to be able to fight, yes?”

  Rosalynne nodded miserably.

  “I understand your fear and worry, but—”

  “It’s not just her I fear and worry over,” Rosalynne murmurs. “I will speak to Vivian.”

  “And allow her to fight?”

  “I… I may. Now, Ulric, please, tell me what brought you here?”

  “I would like to know if it has been decided where and when my militia will be used.”

  “Ah, yes. Come with me inside the castle, and we can discuss the possibilities I have thought up.”

  Ulric walked at a pace a half-step behind her until she realized and slowed to match his speed. His smile was wide, far too wide. How could this be his life? The leader of a militia. Friends with a princess. Longing to be more than merely friends with a queen. Yes, the war could claim his life tomorrow, but at least no one could say that Ulric wasn’t devoted entirely to the Fate of Life.

  66

  Rase Ainsley

  The sight of his new house made Rase smile as he rushed up the stairs and barged inside.

  Leanne sat by the window in the parlor. Yes, the house, although modest, had a parlor. Rase had not thought he would ever sit in one before, but now, he sank into a plush chair while his sister sat on the plush cushion on the bench beneath the window.

  “How are you doing today?” Rase asked.

  “It’s nearly nighttime. You should be asking how I am doing tonight.”

  He laughed, enjoying her teasing, but her expression was grave, far too serious.

  She was always far too serious these days.

  Rase sighed and leaned forward, his elbows digging into his knees. “We need to discuss something.”

  “Rase, I’m tired.”

  He hesitated. She didn’t look or seem as tired as she had in a few days ago. Every day, she seemed to be more and more recovered, but she wasn’t the same Leanne. She wasn’t his happy sister. They used to tease each other all the time or go hunting and gathering together.

  But that had been before. Before their ma had been killed. Before their pa had been murdered in the marketplace for stealing some food. Before Maxine went missing and became pregnant by the earl's son.

  When they were both hungry all the time but at least they had friends. They didn’t feel so alone.

  “Tired or not, can we talk a little?” he asked. If she refused again, he would let her sleep, but first thing in the morning, they would speak.

  Leanne said nothing, merely staring out the window.

  Rase sighed. “You need to leave the house more.”

  “Why?”

  “Go for walks with me. We don’t have to look for berries or nothing. Just walk.”

  “Why?” she repeated.

  “To build up your strength.”

  “Rase, I can walk just fine,” she protested.

  “And I’m going to see if I can get you a nicer dress,” he continued.

  She turned toward him, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Why?” she repeated, the word harsher now.

  "You need protection. I can't be here all of the time. I have to find food."

  “What does that have to do with a nice dress?”

  “Everything. Leanne, you need a husband.”

  “A… husband,” she uttered flatly.

  “Yes. Someone to—”

  “I know why women marry,” she said, her tone dry.

  “You’re seventeen now. You should’ve been married already,” he pointed out.

  “I have nothing to offer, no dowry. No one will want to marry me unless he is old, fat, already outlived three wives, is missing most of his teeth…”

  “If he has money—”

  “No.”

  “Your life is worth more than just staying in this house.”

  “It’s not even our house, Rase. We’re nothing. We’re worthless. Maybe…”

  “Don’t,” he warned her.

  “Maybe it would have been better for both of us if I had just died like Ma.”

  “How can you say that!” he burst out. “Leanne…”

  She turned to him, tears dripping down her face. “Rase, you’re so much stronger than I am, than I ever will be. You can handle all of this by yourself.”

  “I am not strong. I’m fighting for you! I’m doing all of this for you!”

  “All of what, Rase? I don’t have any idea what you do all day or night when you leave. I’m not sure I want to know. You aren’t twelve anymore.”

  “I’m thirteen,” he grumbled.

  “You’re an old man in a young boy’s body, a bitter old man who hates the world. Tenoch is at war with Vincana, but you’re waging your own war, aren’t you?”

  He shuddered. “Leanne—”

  “Rase, I’m nothing but a burden.”

  “You are not. You’re my sister, and—”

  “And I can’t. I can’t do anything. I can’t bring myself to leave the house. I can’t stand the cold, but it’s more than that. Yes, I’m afraid. I’m worried I’ll be attacked again, that the man will return and kill me. I’m petrified that one day, I will try to hunt for food and fall prey to the cold and never wake up. Each time I fall asleep, I wonder if I’ll see the morning.”

  “First of all, you don’t have to worry. The man who did this, Radcliff Snell, the noble who impregnated Maxine? He’s dead. He either came to that… that shack of a house or else he hired someone. With him dead, that’s not an issue.”

  She did not ask how he knew or what role he had played. Would he have lied? He wasn’t entirely certain.

  “You do not need to hunt for food, and you do not need to fear whether or not you’ll see dawn because you will. Your wound is all healed, and—”

  “I have no motivation for anything. I can’t bring myself to wash up. I don’t want to practice my letters. There’s nothing I want to do. Half the time, I don’t even want to eat.”

  “But you’re hungry, aren’t you?”

  “A little. Enough for me to eat some, but…” Leanne lowered her head. “Rase, do not worry about me.”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  Already, Rase was considering an alternative. If Leanne would not go out to meet eligible men, perhaps he should bring them to her. Yes, that was exactly what he would do in the morning. Well, after he first secured her a dress that would make her seem far more than a young woman nearly destroyed by the Fate of Chaos.

  But when morning came, Leanne was gone. There was no sign of her anywhere, and Rase feared that perhaps the assailant had come for her, she had been kidnapped, she had gone out to hunt for food after all or…

  Or she had run away.

  67

  Queen Sabine Grantham

  The unease Sabine had first felt when the Vincanans had breached the castle walls had finally left roughly
a fortnight ago, but the past few days, Sabine found herself looking over her shoulder. She could not help feeling as if someone was watching her, and that someone was not one of her guards.

  But then, that feeling left as abruptly as it had started. Sabine was beginning to wonder if she were going mad when she spied a familiar-looking man slinking off down the corridor. He appeared so out of place that Sabine actually lifted her heavy skirts so that she could move swifter. When she reached the end, he was just disappearing, heading to the right.

  Sabine picked up the pace, but the man was gone. Dark hair, plain clothes… he was not dressed in livery, so he could not be a servant, but why else would such a common man be lurking about the castle?

  With the bending f her finger, she beckoned her guards to her. “Did you see that man I was following?” she asked in a whisper, too unnerved to speak in even a normal tone.

  Her guards nodded as if they shared a single mind and body.

  “If you happen to see him again, go and detain him. I wish to speak with him.”

  “Who is he?” Thorley Everett asked. “If you wish for us to know, that is.”

  “That is precisely why I wish to speak to him. I do not know who he is.”

  The guards beat their fist to their chest to accept the duty.

  That night, Sabine had laid out the grimoire and her notes as well as her herbs and other ingredients, but just as every other night, she could not bring herself to work on her potion. The truth potion she had modified had caused people to die. Yes, they had been prisoners, but that had not been an execution. That had been a mistake, a fatal one. Most nights, she suffered terrible nightmares when strange skeletal figures dressed in robes came and carried her away.

  No, she would not work on the potion tonight. Perhaps tomorrow, or mayhap she should attempt to formulate the potion during the sunlit hours…

  When the sun rose, Sabine thought a meal might help to settle her nerves. The nightmare still seemed far too fresh, and her wrist ached where the skeletal figure had seized her wrist, almost as if she truly had been grabbed and yanked there.

  As she made her way to the royal dining area, a room off the massive corridor filled with tables and benches for when they hosted balls and such, Sabine spied the man. He was ahead of her, heading in the same direction.

  Farther ahead was Rosalynne, trailed by her guards.

  Unnerved, Sabine could not bring herself to quicken her pace. Nor did she call out. If the man suspected he was being followed… His intentions were far more likely to be ill than good.

  Somehow, she blinked, and he was gone. She hesitated, glancing all around, but there weren’t any doors here, so where had he gone?

  The hairs on the back of her neck rose, but she pushed on and had a cordial enough breaking of their fasts with Rosalynne. When the younger queen stood, Sabine waved her ahead.

  “I will be just a moment,” Sabine said, having purposely eaten slower than normal so as to have an excuse to be detained.

  But only moments after Rosalynne and her guards left the room, Sabine stood without having taken another bite and moved to follow the queen, hoping enough time had passed for the mysterious, lurking man to make an appearance.

  And he did, trailing behind Rosalynne again.

  A spy?

  For the Vincanans or someone else?

  Either way, Sabine looked to her guards and pointed at the man. There was a struggle, loud enough for Rosalynne’s guards to recognize there was a problem and join in the fray. Within minutes, the man was captured.

  Rosalynne approached and eyed Sabine. “You wished to meet my shadow.”

  “You know about him?”

  “I know he’s been following me. I do not know why, however.” Rosalynne cut her gaze to the captured man. “Who are you?”

  “Rosalynne,” Sabine whispered urgently.

  “Who are you?” Rosalynne said again, almost a whisper this time but the intensity of her tone rising. “How did you come to be inside the castle?”

  Sabine exhaled, trying to calm her nerves. “Because we brought him here. Rosalynne, he is one of our prisoners.”

  Rosalynne’s eyes widened, and she stared down the man. “You were following me not to spy, were you? You meant to kill me. Is that not so?”

  The man scowled but said nothing.

  “How did you escape?” Sabine wondered. “Or were you helped?”

  The Vincanan laughed and spat in Sabine’s face.

  Rosalynne held out her hand toward a guard who was not actively restraining the captive. He handed her a dagger, and she pressed the tip beneath his chin and against his neck. Sabine knew Rosalynne hadn't the strength or spine to actually harm or kill the man, but her hand was still enough. Perhaps he might think the threat real.

  “If you do not start to talk, we will have no further use for you,” Rosalynne said coldly. “Because of your escape, you cannot go back into a cell, so instead, you will be killed, your body flung over the walls, and you will be fed by whatever animals have not yet hibernated away.”

  The Vincanan snickered and shook his head. “I did not escape, and if I had, I would have freed the others.”

  “You were helped then,” Sabine reasoned. “Who is your accomplice?”

  The Vincanan said nothing, and Sabine nodded to her other guard as Thorley held the man’s one arm back. The guard did not hesitate and punched the captive hard enough in the stomach that his air audibly left his lungs.

  “You might try again,” Sabine said coldly. “As the queen said, we have no further use for you unless perhaps you talk.”

  “All I will see is that I and one other had been freed.”

  “To kill me,” Rosalynne said.

  Or one to kill each of the queens. Sabine shivered.

  The older queen addressed the younger. “He is yours to do with as you please.”

  Rosalynne nodded slowly. "I accept your offering as a gesture of goodwill."

  The two queens shared a smile, and then, as one, smiled at the captive. Whatever his fate might be, he would rue the day he had been captured a second time because there would not be a third chance given.

  68

  Queen Rosalynne Rivera

  “Please, Queen Sabine, won’t you join us all for a little stroll?” Rosalynne asked conversationally.

  “Why, I would enjoy that.”

  The queens led the way, the guards either before or behind them, the prisoner held by two guards last of all.

  Rosalynne led the party to the deepest portions of the castle, deeper even than the dungeon. Here, there was a pool some thought mystical. Rosalynne used to pretend that the bubbles housed pixies or fairies within them, and when she had learned that it was merely a hot spring, with gases forming the bubbles, she had not bothered to return.

  Until now.

  The area housing the pool was almost cave-like, the walls made of stone, the entire place damp and cool unless one stepped closer to the pond.

  Here, no one else in the castle would be able to find them… or hear them. Not that Rosalynne intended to kill the man. He might have more to share.

  "Did you and your fellow captives… Did the lot of you seek to be captured? Did you purposely want to be in the castle so as to kill me?" she asked, her voice not shaking. Her hands, however, were ever so slightly, which was why she held them clasped behind her back.

  The Vincanan just laughed. Oh, how she hated that sound! Full of scorn and mockery, his laughter was toxic.

  "You are not long for this world. Neither of you is," he said, shifting his gaze to Sabine.

  The older queen darted forward, grabbed the dagger Rosalynne had tucked into her sash, and stabbed the captive right in the stomach before slashing his throat. She shoved him backward. The captive stumbled back a few paces and then slipped straight into the pool. He did not scream at all, his eyes wide, his features no longer twisted with rage and hatred, only shock. The bubbles around him turned crimson, his blood tainting the waters.<
br />
  Rosalynne whirled on Sabine. “You did not have to do that!”

  "You think not? He wished to kill you. If he is to be believed, there is another Vincanan wandering the castle who is targeting me. Perhaps this will serve as a warning to him or her, but I doubt that will be the case. They are bred from an early age to know how to use weapons. They are nothing more than killers, and if we do not root out every last one of them who has dared to step foot on Tenoch soil and spilt our guards and natives' blood, then we will lose. We should have every last one of the prisoners killed too. They are far too dangerous to be kept alive.”

  Sabine held out the dagger, and the owner reclaimed it and washed off the blood as the elder queen turned away.

  "Perhaps they are too dangerous to be left alive, but that is a decision we should make together," Rosalynne said through gritted teeth. "We wish for us both to survive this, yes? Then we must work together on all things."

  Sabine did not face her or even turn her head to the side as she uttered, “You should be grateful and gracious for the kindness I showed you. For now, at least, I care about your life and well-being.”

  “That almost sounds like a threat,” Rosalynne snapped.

  “I thought… We might have been friends if life has been different, if we had met under another set of circumstances. Were that we were friends…”

  Sabine abandoned Rosalynne now to order the body’s retrieval. By now, the hot spring had submerged the Vincanan completely.

  Did Sabine truly wish to befriend Rosalynne? For their truce to last beyond the war? But only one could remain queen… if they proved victorious. How could a friendship between the two last?

  It was odd to think about relationships and how they could change over time, how a person could change over time. As the guards retrieved the body, Rosalynne thought of both Ulric and Vivian, and why did her stomach clench painfully at the idea of the two of them securing a blissful union together? It was the horror of the murder she had just witnessed that was making her think such ridiculous things, all in an attempt to preoccupy her mind.