The Rising

by Kristen Ashley

  Teddy was thinking good thoughts too.

  Thus, he smiled.

  “Now,” Faunus began to push out of his seat, “we go deal with your father.”

  And at that, he was no longer thinking good thoughts.

  Thus, he frowned.

  Teddy had learned much living with Lorenz and Nyx.

  One of the things he had learned was that, when you loved someone, and it was clear they were intent to do something they felt they needed to do, even if you didn’t want them to do it, you let them.

  And all right, there were occasions when Nyx did not do this with a great deal of grace.

  But this was only about things she very much disagreed, like Teddy putting his life on the line to become a spy.

  Other than that, if there was something in Lorenz that needed it, she gave it.

  And Lorenz did the same.

  He and Faunus had hardly begun to become what they were becoming when Faunus had declared he would do what he was now intent to do in the event of that becoming.

  And as they rode ever closer to the farm where his father raised some sheep, and some goats, and alternated the fields over the years to grow wheat that was milled in town, seeing familiar landmarks he had not seen in years, and had thought he would never see again, he did what he had seen Nyx do. And Lorenz.

  He kept his mouth shut and let the man he loved go about doing what he needed to do.

  The day was growing late, the sun having begun its descent from the sky, and as Teddy knew from helping his father in his work, the day started early, in the dark, and ended early, when the darkness came again. Especially in the winters.

  And then in you went for a hearty meal to begin to rejuvenate the vast amounts of energy you expended in the day. Then shortly after, you slept so you could finish that effort.

  Thus, not long after they rode up the lane and dismounted, hanging about in wait, Teddy caught his father approaching from the north field.

  His sire did not look happy to have visitors, but then he had never been a jovial man.

  Life was toil, the earning of money from that, an occasional evening trip to visit the pub in town and listen to music, if it was on offer, while you drank your ale.

  And not much else.

  Thinking on this, Teddy found he was like his father in that respect.

  He wanted a simple life.

  He had had adventures, not entirely of his choice.

  They were, until very recently, not enjoyable.

  Thus, once he returned to Firenze, he wished naught but to embrace Nyx and Lorenz, settle Moira, settle himself with Faunus, teach his children at the school and spoil the ones Lorenz eventually gave to Nyx.

  His father’s step faltered, and his expression grew astonished when he noted Teddy in the midst of his party.

  And then Teddy watched his face grow hard.

  He waited until he was close before he called, “In the company of Firenz warriors after alliance. What’s the poof done now?”

  The instant fury seething from Faunus (and Saturn, not to mention Moira), made Teddy whisper, “Calm.”

  “I am Faunus, of the Trusted of the King of Firenze,” Faunus decreed.

  His father’s chin shot back into his neck as he came to a stop a few feet away from them.

  “And this is Saturn of the Trusted,” he went on, indicating Saturn.

  Saturn didn’t move. Just stared at Teddy’s father.

  “And we escort Moira, of the Lesser Thicket, unblooded sister to your son,” he stated.

  Moira wore an openly contemptuous expression.

  Teddy’s father’s head ticked as he glanced at her before he returned his attention to Faunus.

  “We are here to inform you we return to Firenze, taking your son with us,” Faunus continued.

  “Like I said, what’s he done now?” Hans Swensson asked.

  “We are in Wodell on the mission of saving him after he was abducted by leaders of The Rising. This after Tedrey acted valiantly and was instrumental in the bringing down of the radicals,” Faunus declared.

  His father’s eyes grew large.

  “Unfortunately, we were unable to find him before the men who had taken him also abducted a large number of women. If you have not yet heard of it,” Faunus said, “I have no doubt you eventually will. They were massacred up north. Only seven survived. And those seven survived because your son was able to free himself of his bonds, and at great peril to himself, he saved them all.”

  Hans turned his astonished gaze to Teddy.

  “He returns to Firenze a hero of Firenze, a hero of Wodell, and as such, before we began our journey to here, he was King True and Queen Farah’s guest at Birchlire Castle,” Faunus carried on.

  “By the gods,” his father murmured.

  “This is the man your son became,” Faunus declared. “Thus, you have the gratitude of two nations.”

  At that, in surprise, all eyes shot to Faunus, even Teddy’s.

  Faunus did not take his attention from Hans.

  “For if you had not turned him out due to the flaw in your soul,” Faunus continued. “A flaw no man should have, and certainly no father, he would have been here, at work with you in your fields, unable to do the deeds he did to bring peace and save lives. Fortunately, he was not and the peoples of two realms, and specifically seven very grateful women and their families, are indebted to him.”

  Faunus then bowed low toward Hans.

  “Tedrey,” his father whispered, and Teddy looked to him.

  Hans’s skin had slightly paled, but his eyes were brightening with pride.

  Faunus’s voice sounded, regaining both a son and his father’s attention.

  “You should know, as Tedrey is a particular friend to the Captain of the Trusted and his wife, and they have grown to know him very well, that Mars, King of the Firenze, and your King True, are aware of your betrayal of your flesh. And although your son has great humility, and will probably have some difficulty in accepting the praise of kings and the rewards they will wish to bestow on him, it will be made clear to them that you had naught to do with this outside causing him to learn how to be extraordinary by surviving your cruelty.”

  Hans’s body jolted.

  “I—” his father began.

  But he stopped when Faunus’s hand came up.

  “Your words are uninvited, but even if you spoke them, they would mean nothing. As you mean nothing. You are incidental in a man’s learning to be a survivor. I am here as the one who loves him. I am here as the man who has given him my heart, to share with you the depth of your profound mistake, so you can think on that until you rest on your pyre.”

  Clearly finished, Faunus turned, his mantle swinging about his shoulders, and his gaze came to Tedrey.

  “Now, we can go home.”

  And with that, he strode to his horse.

  Teddy didn’t follow him for Moira’s voice took his attention to where she stood, Saturn close to her back, within inches of his father.

  “I am one of those women he saved,” she declared.

  Tedrey jumped and his father flinched and took a step away as she spat in his face.

  Directly, she moved away, Saturn following her.

  He watched as his father slowly lifted a hand to swipe the spittle from his face, and Moira and Saturn came up beside him, Moira taking Teddy’s hand.

  “Let us go, Teddy,” she urged.

  He just stood there, staring at his sire.

  “Teddy,” Faunus called from where they had left their horses.

  Father and son looked into each other’s eyes.

  His father opened his mouth to speak.

  But he didn’t, for Teddy said, “How odd. I feel nothing.”

  The man looked struck.

  Moira tugged on his hand. “Good. Then let us go.”

  He turned to her.

  Saturn was correct.

  She had lovely skin.

  And her voice was beautiful.

&nbs
p; He curled his fingers around hers and allowed her to guide him to his horse.

  Faunus was already mounted.

  Teddy didn’t hesitate to swing up in the saddle.

  Saturn assisted Moira then he swung up in his own.

  Faunus was the first to put his heels to his steed and the horse raced down the lane with Teddy following him, Moira following Teddy, and Saturn taking the rear.

  They made the road and headed toward Trevor’s Gorge.

  Not a one of them looked back.

  147

  The Reckoning

  Jellan

  Sky Citadel, Sky Bay

  AIREN

  Jellan was taken aback.

  He thought it would be much more difficult, especially in a time of war, to gain access to the Citadel and an audience with the Regent.

  But he had given his name at the guardhouse at the bottom of the lane, the guard had looked at him, allowed him into the structure to sit by their small fire (for which he was thankful, northern Airen by the sea was shockingly chill), and asked him to wait.

  Another guard had cantered up the lane on his horse, only to canter back down in what could be naught but half an hour.

  To which he had spoken quietly with the man who was in the guardhouse with Jellan.

  That guard came to him, and he said, “His Grace awaits you at the Citadel. Please remount your horse. The corporal will guide you there.”

  And now, there he was.

  The guard who had guided him to the Regent’s palace was sweeping open the grand doors to the Citadel, and Jellan was walking through.

  Easy as that.

  He nearly smiled to himself, and would have, if he did not have to assume an air of urgency in heroically escaping the Beast and sharing with them the creature walked amongst them.

  But it was difficult to force it down.

  He had sat a number of diplomatic tables, and he was a well-known Go’En of the Go’Doan.

  But truly, he did not expect this quick of reception.

  The door barely closed behind him, and he was blinking in some shock at the massive spray of colorful gladiolus atop a handsome table that adorned the always severe, and even grim (to Jellan’s opinion on the décor) entryway of the Sky Citadel, when he heard the quick staccato clip of boots hitting stone.

  He looked in that direction to see Macrinus, Cassius’s closest lieutenant, approaching, alongside him Hera, Elena’s captain.

  Dismissing Hera and watching Macrinus, Jellan thought, Ah, but it is good to again be amongst the Airenzian.

  His dead lover Rupert had been Airenzian, with his tall, muscular body and his thick cock.

  Airenzian, like the Firenz and Go’Doan, had little problem with male on male lovers. Though they were quieter about it than the Firenz.

  It was female on female lovers that had been outlawed many years ago.

  Jellan wondered, without much interest, in the sweeping change that the Regent was making that they’d heard much news of in their meanderings, if Cassius had put a stop to that law as well.

  He then ceased wondering this as he noticed Hera move her arm out then in, to rest her hand on her stomach, just as he felt an odd chill, as if he was under a warm blanket, and someone had tugged it off.

  “G’Jell,” Macrinus greeted shortly, and the hall might no longer look severe and grim, but Macrinus’s expression was.

  Hera appeared even less inviting.

  He shook the curious feeling he’d had aside as naught but a draught and focused on Cassius’s man.

  “Macrinus,” he replied. “I am most grateful for a swift audience with the Regent. I have come from a—”

  “You’ll have your say,” Macrinus cut him off to state oddly. “For the now, come with me, be quiet, and your turn will come where you will be heard.”

  It was with some surprise that Jellan abruptly found himself staring at Macrinus’s and Hera’s backs after they’d turned and prowled away, and he had to hop to in order to follow them.

  If he was correct with the direction they were taking, the two lieutenants were leading him to the throne room.

  An odd choice for Cassius, though it wouldn’t have been for Gallienus.

  Gallienus was all about pomposity.

  Jellan had thought Cassius would be far more informal.

  However, as he approached, he saw the doors to the throne room were open, and he could hear some business was being discussed within.

  This must be the reason why Cassius was there.

  Still walking, Hera twisted to him before they arrived at the doors and ordered, “When you enter, you will remain at the back. You’ll be called forward when it’s your time to speak.”

  He looked from her to the man with her who was also gazing back at him.

  “Macrinus, my journey has been long and arduous. If I could—” he began to ask after refreshments, which frankly should have been offered without being asked.

  But Macrinus turned away from him, disappeared into the throne room, Hera with him, leaving Jellan to enter alone, with no fanfare, no announcement of his presence, nothing.

  Odd, disrespectful and peeving.

  He did not know Macrinus that well, or Hera at all (she was very quiet and circumspect, unlike her fellow captain, who was bawdy and oftentimes annoying), but it had been Jellan’s impression Macrinus was always rather irreverent, something Cassius not only put up with, he was much that way himself.

  And Jellan considered, if these men weren’t so pleasing to look upon, it would have been irritating.

  Fortunately for them, they were pleasing to look upon.

  This thought swept from his head as he entered the room, took in its occupants, and came to a swaying halt at experiencing at once all he surveyed.

  For on the podium in the front, sitting in thrones side by side, were Cassius and Elena.

  But also, to Cassius’ left, sat Mars and Silence.

  To their left, sat True and Farah, though in between True and Silence sat a large, striking man with black hair that Jellan had never seen before.

  And to Elena’s right, sat Aramus and Ha-Lah.

  Through the people standing about the room, Jellan could just see Princess Serena seated at the step up to the podium, close to her sister’s feet.

  Serena had one foot to the floor, leg bent, one foot to the dais, that leg bent as well, her forearm resting atop that knee, and her eyes, as well as the attention of all the others, was on the man standing on the floor before the thronal platform.

  As he had their backs, Jellan couldn’t tell if he knew many of the people in the room, however he had been in that room before, and he was again stunned at the change of it with its carpets and pennants—and everywhere you looked—color.

  However, as great a change as this was, it barely registered on him for Gallienus, in a tatty, loose, ill-fitting, and not all that clean outfit of matching pants and tunic of nondescript color was apparently in full bluster.

  “Stop,” Cassius demanded of his father before Jellan had heard a word the ill-kempt king was saying. “You committed multiple acts of treason against your own realm.”

  Jellan blinked rapidly.

  “And naught you’re saying is giving me reason not to take your head,” Cassius finished.

  Take his head?

  By the gods.

  Cassius turned his attention to someone else standing before him that Jellan could not see.

  “Your castle is gone,” he stated. His gaze went to someone else Jellan couldn’t see. “Your manor is gone.” Another shift from Cassius. “And your keep. I’ll not have any universities or hospitals if things keep going at this rate. My peoples are in awe of the show of the dragons, but really, I tire of it. It is time to move on. But if we must, you’ve seen the list. The guards who were assisting you at the Bailey have been apprehended and now grace their own cells. We know the name of every lord who sat council in Dunlyn against me. The dragons will fly, but I’ll also be forced to send word to the
executioner to sharpen his blade.”

  “You have my capitulation,” one of the men Jellan could not see at the front called.

  “That’s all well and good, Lord Jordy, but in the now you have no home, you have no militia, and you are but one of twenty-seven names on that list.” Cassius’s gaze swept the front of the assembly. “I want a surrender signed by all of you, as well as every man on that list, with every member of your armies denouncing their lords and swearing fealty to me, and then I will accept capitulation.”

  “And after that we face Slán Bailey for life, and for our sons…what?” Another man from the front asked. “You’ve obliterated my home. Taken my land. I leave him nothing. That keep your dragons eradicated had been in my family for twelve generations.”

  “Well, then I hope your son has acquired some skill, or does so in future, so he can feed himself,” Cassius replied.

  “Is it that difficult to consider instituting your changes in a lengthier manner to allow all, gentry and laborer alike, to become used to one in order to be better prepared for the next?” another man asked.

  “This is wise advice,” Cassius relented, to a feeling of not a small amount of relief sweeping from the front of the room.

  Sadly for them, Cassius hadn’t finished speaking.

  “The issue I have with it is twofold, for I have gentry who are not at odds with this and have offered coin to the crown to keep their holdings as well as extended all manner of employment to their vassals, for which they will now pay them a fair wage. They do understand that their lives will change, but they’re bloody fucking wealthy, couldn’t eat through the coin they have in five generations, unless they suffer grave amounts of stupidity, and are keen for the challenge in discovering different ways to keep their coffers topped up.”

  When no one had a response to this, Cassius carried on.

  “Secondly, for laborer or merchant, soldier or sailor, nothing changes. Laborers will simply keep the coin they earn from their endeavors, rather than paying much of it to a lord who owns the land they work who thinks it’s their due. So, really, it is a small minority of my citizenry who has to grow accustomed to a new way of doing things. And as what I ask is not very difficult to come to grips with, I don’t see any reason to draw it out.”