The Spirit of the Realm

by Rachel L Brown

  “Please escort the Queen to her chambers while I investigate what has happened. The killer could still be out there,” the High Vestral said.

  Lady Ethelbright and Lady Janel rushed to Emira’s side.

  “Emira,” the Dowager Queen said while she moved past her. Emira’s eyes widened at her informal tone. “Do not let them break you.”

  Emira stared at her feet as the guards escorted her to her chambers. Anger and shame swirled through her like magic in a rune. Lady Ethelbright and Lady Janel kept her walking when she stumbled over a loose stone tile.

  When they entered her chambers, Emira yanked off the circlet on top of her head threw it onto the ground.

  “Your Majesty! That circlet is over three hundred years old!” Lady Janel cried, she rushed over and picked up the circlet.

  “Four people, two of them children, were just murdered and all you care about is a bloody piece of jewelry!”

  “Your Majesty you need to calm yourself,” Lady Ethelbright said.

  “Sodervia is about to plunge into a war and you want me to be calm!” Emira’s voice rose in pitch with each word. “Get out!”

  Once the door slammed shut, Emira trudged over to a chair next to the hearth. Her hands trembled like she’d been stuck out in a freezing rain. But she wasn’t cold.

  War was upon them and now she would be responsible for the deaths of thousands. Their blood would be on her hands.

  “You’ve failed,” a voice whispered from the fire. Ghostly faces formed in the smoke. Emira stood and backed away from the fire.

  “Go away wraith!” She shouted and stumbled into her bedchamber.

  “You will bring the kingdom to ruin. Your legacy will be one of ashes and blood.”

  Shadows danced on the walls and Emira drew the bedcovers over her head. She curled into a ball and covered her ears as numerous voices called out to her.

  “You have doomed us all.”

  She shuddered and pulled her knees tighter around her.

  17

  A Brewing Storm

  A HEAVY FOG BLANKETED the training yard. Obscuring Felix’s view of the guards running through their morning drills. Though he used the term loosely. Watching them parade around a courtyard wasn’t what he expected. And... Gods above, they were in cloth jerkins. No chain mail in sight.

  “Sir, the fog is rather thick,” Ingrid, the Captain of the Guard said. She was the only one dressed properly.

  “I have marched men though fog so dense, you couldn’t see your own nose. This is nothing!”

  “Sir, I am more concerned about injuries...”

  “Captain Ingrid, if the guards are more worried about injuries to themselves than doing their duties. They can choose a less dangerous profession.”

  “Sir, with all due respect. The temple is close by and the War Vestrals take turns patrolling the castle.”

  “I see, do the Vestrals also handle the wash?”

  Ingrid stiffened, “no sir.

  “Tell me, what is your plan if the Vestrals use up all their magic?”

  “.... I don’t have one.”

  “How in the hell have you managed to keep anyone from entering this castle and murdering everyone?”

  Ingrid clenched her fists at her sides, “I’m acting on orders the late King enacted. Perhaps you should take it up with his ghost.”

  Felix’s blood boiled at her words. He took a couple wooden swords off a rack. The guards halted when he approached. He gave a sword to a disheveled man. His hair and beard resembled a birds nest, while his tunic had dark wine stains all over it.

  “What’s your name?” Felix asked him.

  “Egil, Your Highness.”

  “Egil did you spend the night in a barn? How can I trust you to carry out your duties if you can’t clean yourself up!

  Egil’s face turned crimson, and he started plucking the food out of his beard. The surrounding guards snickered. Felix waved the sword at them, and their laughter disappeared.

  “As for the rest of you! By the Gods, you look like a group of drunkards pulled from the streets! I wouldn’t count on any of you to protect anything! You prance around the courtyard, playing soldier. I have met farmers more eager to fight to the death for their land, yet you lot don’t even bother to put your armor on for a drill!”

  None of the guards met his gaze. There was no fire in these people. No burning desire to defend anyone. The poisoning of the Marshmires would be a siren call to many unsavory characters.

  A man’s inner fire often dies in peacetime. They become comfortable and are led like lambs to the slaughter. His grandfather’s words rang in his ears. Felix had never understood them until now. He would’ve bet a hundred gold coins the old man was spinning in his tomb.

  “Your Highness, the sparring matches are only once a month!” Ingrid stormed over and stood in front of Egil.

  “If you don’t want to change, I will find someone who will,” Felix tossed her the second sword. Mercifully, Ingrid was smarter than she looked and clamped her mouth shut. Trying to find another person willing to oversee the guards would take weeks. Taking away time Felix needed to plan for the war.

  “Now fight,” he told Ingrid and Egil.

  The remaining guardsmen began to form a circle around them, stopping when Felix pointed at the weapon racks.

  “This isn’t a tournament, start sparring or so help me I will have you whipped!”

  Cries of pain wafted through the courtyard as the sound of wood smacked against unprotected skin. Felix would’ve bet a hundred gold pieces they would be in full armor tomorrow.

  “For a moment I thought your grandfather had returned from the grave.” Lord Rover said, emerging from a doorway. Alvar was right behind him with a sour expression.

  “Ha! If he were here, these guards would be in full plate armor!”

  Felix waited for Alvar to chime in, but the Vestral didn’t make a sound. “What is it, Alvar? You look rather cross.”

  Before Alvar could respond, a door on the far side of the courtyard flew open. A blur of black and white ran out. It took Felix a moment to recognize Lady Janel as she tried to avoid getting hit by a wooden sword. Her eyes darted about, surveying the guards before her panicked gaze rested on Felix.

  “Your Highness!” Lady Janel cried out.

  Gods, what now?

  “The Queen is missing!”

  “Missing?”

  Lady Janel held up a hand as she took a few deep breaths. Her normally well-kept appearance was in shambles. She swept back a lock of her dark hair as she struggled to regain her composure.

  “Last night she went to pray, and we just received a report she never arrived at the temple!”

  “Don’t worry, I will find the Queen,” Alvar pulled out a seeking rune. The silver light flickered, the magic within it struggling to form. Alvar waited a few moments and shoved the rune into his pouch when the magic in it died.

  “The rune became overwhelmed; my magic sensed the Queen is north and south all at once.”

  “That makes little sense!” Lord Rover exclaimed; Lady Janel burst into tears.

  “Is she dead?”

  “Fear not my Lady, my magic wouldn’t have sensed her if she wasn’t alive.”

  Felix tightened his sword belt, “Lord Rover, gather the men. You will take half of them and search the city. The rest will join me and Alvar in the valley.”

  “Fifteen men is hardly enough to search an entire city; we’d be at it for weeks!”

  Felix ignored his outburst and handed Lady Janel a small handkerchief.

  “Lady Janel, I will need you and Lady Ethelbright to organize a search of the castle. I don’t care if you have to break into the treasure room.”

  Lady Janel wiped her eyes, “of course.”

  She hurried over to Ingrid and after a few tense words, the guards rushed out of the training yard.

  THE FOG IN THE VALLEY wasn’t thick like the city, but Alvar still couldn’t use the seeking rune.

&
nbsp; “We won’t be able to canvass the entire valley in a day, not by horseback,” Felix said, watching a couple of his men check for tracks.

  “Too bad the damn fog makes it impossible for us to use the griffins,” Alvar sighed. “Whoever took the Queen might be far into the mountains by now.”

  “What if no one took the Queen?”

  “Are you implying she ran away?”

  “With the amount of pressure she’s been under for the past few days, I wouldn’t be surprised. Between trying to get the peace treaty signed and now she is being blamed for the deaths of the Marshmires. It’s a wonder something hasn’t happened sooner.”

  “You could be right, but if you are wrong...” Alvar trailed off. A messenger hawk emerged from the mists and over to one of Felix’s men.

  “Sir! All four passes report no one has gone through their gates.”

  If the Queen wanted to leave the valley the only other ways out were by griffin or the steep paths used by shepherds. He doubted she knew where those were, and her griffin was still in training.

  “I think the question we should be asking is where a woman who has spent her entire life near an ocean go?”

  Alvar’s eyes lit up.

  “The lake?”

  “She could go to the river, but yes I think she went to the lake.”

  Felix started to ride toward the lake as Alvar shouted at his men to follow.

  The closer they got to the lake, the denser the fog became. They entered the small forest that encircled the lake, untamed underbrush caused his horse to stumble. Felix dismounted and handed the reins over to one of his men. It wouldn’t do if his horse broke a leg.

  “Fan out and search every part of the lake!” Felix ordered his men.

  “This is going to take all damn day,” Alvar grumbled.

  “I can’t believe they let her just leave.”

  “Well, she is the Queen and she could’ve ordered them to let her go.”

  “I don’t care if it was an order, we’re at war.”

  The moment he got back to the castle he was going to do a complete retraining of every guard in the city. If the Western Marshes got anywhere near Avemdal, he needed to trust the guards wouldn’t run or worse defect.

  “Well let’s hope she’s here.”

  The air around then became thicker and soon Felix could barely see his own feet.

  With each step he took, his body began to feel heavier. The ground underneath him was a swirling haze of dust and gray mist. Making it impossible for him to tell if he was going the right way.

  “Come no further mortal.”

  A woman’s voice called from the mists. The hair on Felix’s neck stood up. He reached for his sword on instinct and began to pour magic into the runes. A tendril of fog wrapped itself around his blade. Sucking the magic out before it could take hold in the runes. He tried again, but the result was the same. His magic was too weak to combat this.

  “Alvar!” He called out; the sound echoed as if he were in a cave.

  Gods, why do I have to encounter a spirit now? Growing up, Felix had heard many a tale of spirit’s living around the lake. He used to think the stories were to keep curious children away from the dark waters. Though none of the stories had mentioned anything about magical fog...

  Sheathing his sword, he peered into the mists. The sounds of waves lapping against the shoreline greeted his ears, but he could make out nothing in the fog before him.

  “Spirit! You are impeding on our search for the Queen!”

  Something solid slammed into Felix’s back, sending him face first into the ground.

  “I said come no further!”

  Felix struggled to prop himself up, the weight on his back grew heavier the more he moved.

  “I must find the Queen she is in danger!”

  “You are not here to kill her?”

  “If I did my ancestors would rise from the grave and drag me into the underworld.”

  The wind howled around him and the weight on his back lessened allowing him to stand. The fog around him drew back and a woman with dark blue and silver hair appeared. The mists wrapped around her, forming into a dress of silver scales.

  “Spirit, I don’t have time for theatrics, I must resume looking for the Queen.”

  The woman laughed; the sound was like a thousand tiny bells ringing. It was simultaneously the most annoying and most beautiful sound Felix had ever heard.

  “If you knew who I was, you wouldn’t be speaking to me in such a manner.”

  “I don’t care who you are. You’re in my way.”

  An invisible force hit the back of his knees forcing him to the ground. The magic inside him shrank, something was preventing him from using it. His sword was yanked out of the sheath and hovered in front of him. The tip of the blade pointed at his throat.

  “Listen well mortal, I will not say this again.” the woman hissed. “The fire inside the Queen is dwindling with each passing day and forces are conspiring to take the throne.”

  If his sword wasn’t hovering in front of him, Felix would’ve laughed.

  “You’re telling me things I already know. The Queen is bound to be disappointed, her peace treaty failed and war is upon us.”

  The cool metal of his blade pressed against his throat. He clenched his fists at his sides, the woman floated closer to him. Her magic brushed against him like waves and her eyes became a brilliant blue.

  “Something foul has arisen in the heart of this kingdom. If left unchecked, the rot will spread to every corner of the continent.”

  “Then how do I stop it?”

  “That isn’t your task, Felix son of King Stefan. Your task is simple, keep the flame within the Queen lit and ensure the kingdom doesn’t fall to ruin.”

  “That’s...not simple.”

  The woman’s eyes flashed with red and again the sword pressed against his skin.

  “This is why I cannot stand most mortals; I have come to give you a warning and yet you make light of it!”

  “Forgive me, I will keep your warning in mind, but it’s useless if I am stuck kneeling here while the Queen is in danger.”

  The woman began to fade into the mists. A few orbs of light appeared and hovered around Felix’s sword. One by one, they attached themselves to the runes etched on the blade. The runes flared with magic and then faded. His sword dropped to the ground.

  “Your sword will lead you to her, the brighter it glows the closer you are,” the woman said and disappeared.

  Felix waited a few moments before he picked up his sword. The runes began to light up, growing brighter when he pointed it toward the sound of the lake. The fog also started to lift.

  “Your Highness! Are you all right?” Alvar cried when Felix spotted him.

  He quickly went over everything the spirit had told him. Alvar’s face turned more ashen with each word Felix spoke.

  “The heart of the kingdom?” Alvar’s voice shook.

  “Yes?”

  “I received word there is a man who is claiming to be the God of Justice and Mercy.”

  “So? We all know there are bound to be imposters.”

  “This man is creating an army of Vestrals in the town of Oddlehill.”

  “Oddlehill? Never heard of it.”

  “It’s a small village nestled in the heart of the Central Forest.”

  “Has the High Vestral been informed?”

  “Yes, she is sending Vestrals to investigate. We can discuss this in more detail once we have found the Queen.”

  Felix nodded and turned his attention to the sword, the magic in it flaring to life as he walked. He stopped when he heard Alvar gasp in horror.

  “Your Highness, did the spirit give you that magic?”

  “Yes?” Felix replied before a gust of wind knocked him onto the ground.

  “You idiot! That wasn’t a spirit! It was the Goddess of the Sea! Her divine signature is all over the runes! You’re lucky we’re not near the ocean, if she were near her full p
ower you would be dead.”

  Felix scrambled to his feet. “Goddess or not, the message is the same.”

  “No, it’s more than that. The Queen is likely a devoted follower of the Goddess and if she came here to protect her...” Alvar trailed off.

  Felix’s throat went dry.

  “Then the threat to the Queen is greater than we realized.”

  Silence fell over them as Felix started walking with a brisk pace, the fog around them began to recede the closer they got to the lake. A lone figure stood on top of a small hill.

  “Whose there?”

  It was a man’s voice.

  “Prince Felix and Vestral Alvar!” Felix replied, the magic in his sword started to fade. The closer they got to the figure, Felix could see he was wearing guard armor.

  “This area is off limits by order of the Queen!”

  “Orders be damned man! Do you realize the castle is in an uproar because the Queen is missing?” Alvar stormed over to the guard, small swirls of magic danced around him.

  While the two men argued Felix sheathed his sword and was about to ask the guard where the Queen was. When a glint of silver caught his eye.

  The Queen was partially shrouded by the mists. She had waded out into the lake, holding a spear close to her side.

  “What in the hell is she doing?” Felix whirled around and faced the guard.

  “I don’t know, I thought she was fishing but she’s been standing there for hours.”

  It was then Felix noticed the guard had no weapon on him.

  “You let the Queen take your only weapon?!”

  For a brief moment he thought he finally found a competent guardsman. Now that illusion was shattered.

  “She ordered me to give it to her! She kept muttering to herself about staying safe and not letting them catch her!”

  “Is someone after her?”

  “I don’t know! I haven’t seen a soul aside from you two and the Queen since last night!”

  Felix shared a concerned glance with Alvar. It seemed the Queen was taking the fallout from the peace talks poorly.