by Kyra Gregory
She couldn’t move. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
Shadows loomed over her. Two figures. Blinking through the tears, clearing her vision, Malia and her father stood over her. Bloodshot eyes, equally distraught and heartbroken, they extended their hands to her and drew her into their arms.
Each step away from his chambers tore through her soul. Each step away ripped at the fibres of her being. Each step away left her heart in greater shards.
Chapter 15
EAGER TO MEET THEIR arrival, Riffin rushed away from the Lionessan walls, entering the fort and reaching the office they conducted meetings in only seconds after Jared and Manus did. His actions were equally swift as he shoved Manus in one of the chairs at the table, throwing an arm around Jared’s shoulders and then led him out of earshot. “Thane?” he asked in single breath.
Jared, already on edge, looked even more sombre, explaining that, last he’d heard, Thane had withdrawn all support of the others.
The anger, the fear, the pain, all came to a head. His heart thundered. No matter was greater than that of his family, but nothing fuelled him to succeed at the task at hand more than the desire to return home and care for those he left behind.
“What do you want from me?” Manus Baran asked, a touch of anger in his tone.
Riffin pulled himself away from Jared, turning to face the Lionessan traitor. “You have a wife,” he said, “and a child.” He drew up a chair, seating himself abruptly across from him. “As far as I’m concerned, they’re innocent in all this,” he said, taking Manus somewhat by surprise. “How do you feel about sparing them the shame of being considered traitors?”
Manus glanced from Riffin towards Jared, then towards the Queen as she entered with Gyles.
“I won’t claim to have the desire to spare you the insult,” Riffin said, “but your wife and child could be spared.”
Manus’s eyes shot his way. “What do you want from me?”
Riffin smirked, shooting to his feet, “Good answer,” he said, retrieving a map from another desk. Laying it out in front of him, they all huddled around as he moved to explain their plans. “The rebels in Ludorum sought reinforcements from Lionessa,” he said.
“Which you asked the nobles to refuse,” Manus said.
Manus had been imprisoned in the Lionessan palace ever since the day he confronted him, having little knowledge of those who might’ve heeded Riffin’s orders, and those who might’ve remained loyal to his own cause.
“I did,” he said, nodding curtly, “but, now, we’re going to give them what they wanted.”
Manus blinked, confused.
“The rebels intend on arming civilians with weapons—they’ll force them to fight for the cause,” the Queen said.
Manus shook his head, a short gasp escaping him, “That was never the plan,” he said.
Riffin shrugged a shoulder. “It would appear they got desperate once reinforcements from Lionessa never arrived,” he said. “To them, arming civilians bolsters their numbers to make up for the reinforcements they never received.”
Manus shook his head again, baffled. “Civilians who can’t fight won’t do anything!” he said. “Numbers mean nothing—”
“The only numbers the civilians will contribute to is the body count,” Riffin said, cutting him off. “No good would come of it.”
The Queen circled the table, circled Manus, coming to a stop beside Riffin. “I believed you,” she started, “when you said that you worried for trade, for the people—when you all said you betrayed your King for the sake of the innocent,” she said. “Prove it—defend the people now.”
Manus’s shoulders dropped.
Riffin peeked in his mother’s direction, admiring her profile. The way she looked into Manus’s eyes—it was as though she could convince him to do anything.
Never quite agreeing, Manus hung his head, swallowing. “What do you have planned?” he asked.
Riffin licked his lips, returning to the map before him. “You and Jared will march an army to meet the rebels,” he said. “We’ll equip them with some weapons so as to convince them of their commitment, but not enough that they can think to arm civilians instead of you.”
“Me?” Jared piped up. He’d remained at a distance. As far as he was concerned, he had been merely an escort to their traitor. “Why me?”
Riffin glanced over his shoulder, sighing, “You’re the only one I can trust on the other side that might not be recognised. Me, my father, Gyles... We’ve all been to Ludorum before—we’ve met these nobles face to face.”
“I’ve still met some,” Jared countered, approaching.
Riffin’s smile grew a touch more devious, “And I trust you can deal with the ones that may recognise you,” he said.
Wide-eyed, incredulous, completely and utterly uncertain, Jared slumped. Riffin marched towards him, clapping him on the shoulder as he turned him away from the rest so they wouldn’t see the remainder of his doubt. “I’ve not controlled an army before,” Jared said. “Never anything to this scale, certainly not on land!”
“You won’t be controlling an army,” Riffin said. “You’re going to stand amongst our men—who needn’t act like an army but a band of rebels—and you’re going to ascertain that our traitor does as he’s told.”
Jared tensed, glancing at Riffin out of the corner of his eye, “And if he doesn’t?” he asked.
Riffin smirked, leaning his weight onto his shoulder, “Deal with it,” he said. “I won’t miss the traitor who might’ve sent an assassin to kill my wife—your daughter—and my children.”
Jared looked back then. An anger he might’ve abated over time, ignored for the sake of dealing with the bigger picture, returned to him then.
“As you join the rebels to turn on the castle, Gyles and I will be right behind you,” he said. “We’ll end the rebellion before they ever make it inside—the King and the Prince spared, the civilians safe, the rebellion quashed.”
Jared sighed, glancing his way, eyes narrowed, “You make it sound easy,” he said.
A smile flickered on Riffin’s lips. It wasn’t easy. None of it was easy. “The alternative is letting the civilians join the battle,” he said. “The alternative is letting Niles and Pietros die, and being forced to come to terms with whomever might take the throne after them.”
The silence lingered in the air. Subtle, Jared nodded.
Riffin went to pull away, stopping short before returning to him. Taking the same stance, resting his weight upon his shoulder, he gained his full, undivided attention once more. “One more thing,” he said.
Jared’s brows twitched, searching his expression.
“Our men will need to be born from the lands of the traitors,” he said. “When Manus informs them from where they’ve come from—who sent them—in case they’re asked, take note, will you?”
Traitors were traitors after all.
Chapter 16
VICTORIES, HOWEVER THEY WERE achieved, came with mixed feelings. Walking through what had become a bloody battleground, neither Riffin or his mother could find joy in the product of having marched an army onto foreign soil.
They had acted in all the best intentions, even if some of them had been selfish.
He’d wondered for years how his mother did it—how she coped with bringing death and destruction wherever she went. Gyles had been right; she never quite came to terms with it. She tried the best she could, favoured the innocents over the compulsion for vengeance and politics, but the result... That was nothing either of them could be proud of.
Their methods may have spared countless lives but, seeing bodies strewn across the streets, they never even crossed their minds. How could they ever think about all the lives they saved, when the sum of all it cost lay in the dirt before them?
Blood oozed into the sand and dust along the cobble-stone ground that paved their way to the castle. Men, and women, who had lifted their swords in an effort to overthrow the king, lay still, robbed of th
eir lives in an effort to maintain control. “Does it ever get easier?” Riffin asked.
His mother glanced his way, nothing more than a sympathetic stare peeking out from beneath her lashes, “We would never want it to,” she said.
She was right. The day they both got used to the sight of their countrymen lying dead in the dirt would be the day they would’ve lost their humanity. Who was to say what would happen after that? They would be reckless in battle, unfeeling towards the consequences. That could never happen.
Entering the Ludorum castle, they climbed the stairs to the second floor and came to a stop in King Niles’s throne room.
Filled with a nervous energy, the King paced somewhat. When his eyes fell upon them, the dark arrogance Riffin knew him to have carried for the last few years gradually dissipated. It was still there, distant, melted into the darkness of his eyes, but they were no longer the victims of it.
He looked to the Queen as though she were a ghost, even if he knew he’d never gone through with the execution. Seeing her there, standing tall and with not a scratch on her, he couldn’t quite believe it. His mind swam with questions—some of which Riffin shared.
His lips parted, mouth agape as he struggled to form the words that he most needed to speak. “I owe you a great gratitude,” he said.
The Queen’s features remained unmoving, apathetic to his words.
“That you would do this for us—”
She shook her head, cutting him off. “I didn’t do this for you,” she said.
Taken aback, Niles recoiled but never argued. He couldn’t say he blamed her—it would be foolish to dare when she and her army was the only thing standing between disbanded rebels and his neck.
“You see,” the Queen started, “I, too, owed a great gratitude.” Her attention drifted across the room.
Stood at a distance from them, almost as though making himself small and invisible, Pietros stood with his arms folded across his chest. At the sound of her words, the feeling of her eyes burning into him, he glanced her way.
The realisation dawned on Riffin in seconds but Niles voiced it faster as he turned his back on his guest to face his brother. “You?” he asked, shocked, hurt. “You let her go?”
Riffin peeked his mother’s way. The darkness he knew of her lingered in her gaze as she watched Niles’s horror as he turned upon his brother with the rage to call him a traitor.
“How could you?” he asked. He advanced towards him but Pietros never budged from where he stood. “I told you I would spare her and I did!”
The Queen laughed and Riffin raised a brow. He wondered how she could possibly laugh at the thought of her own execution. “It hardly came from a good place now, did it?” she countered, asking Niles, ripping his attention from his brother.
Niles returned his attention to her. The fact that he didn’t retort with anger or violence said a lot. Though just as much could be said for the fact that their army still lingered on the steps of their castle.
“You knew my family—you knew your cousin—well enough to know they could never forgive my execution at the hand of a man who called himself our ally,” she said. “You knew there would be retribution for your actions and, when faced with nobles who wanted your head, you knew you couldn’t fight a war on two fronts.”
Riffin followed his mother’s every move as she circled him. From a woman who once stood, tired and weakened, in a cell just a few floors below them, she now circled her captor like her prey.
Going back to that day, he understood now. She had reminded him to bide his time because she suspected the troubles Niles was facing. She recognised the nobles manipulating his hand and she knew that allowing them to fight amongst themselves first would soften the battlefield.
“Should the Alliance Council not have been capable of tempering my family’s anger, should they have marched to your door, you hoped you would be able to dispel them by returning me. You hoped you would just hand me back, saying, ‘take this, and leave me be,’” she said. A smirk tugged at the corners of her lips, “An ambitious, albeit amusing, prospect,” she said.
As the Queen circled him, he turned to face his brother. It might’ve all worked, had Pietros not let her go when he did. “I knew it the moment I did it,” she mused aloud. “I always knew I’d put the wrong brother on the throne.”
Niles glared his brother’s way.
Shoulders slumped forward, arms still crossed over his chest, the quiet brother stared at the ground. Shame crept into his features. He no longer carried himself like a Prince. He no longer carried any sense of pride, not in the actions of his King, or in his own. He despaired over it. Having always been his brother’s dutiful servant, he had thrown it all away. What for? Loyalty? Morality? “After everything we’ve been through,” he whispered, his voice cracking, “I couldn’t let you kill her.”
“I swore to you I wouldn’t!”
Pietros met his brother’s gaze. His eyes glistened as he stared into a reflection of his own. Two sides of the same coin, both filled to the brim with hurt and anger. “You swore a lot of things,” he said.
The Queen came to a stop beside Riffin, staring on, somewhat amused by the argument that took place.
Riffin licked his lips, bowing his head, “I always wondered how you made it as far as you did,” he whispered.
“Does it not bring you peace of mind, knowing it’s not only our family that have such extreme disagreements?”
He cocked his head to one side. Disagreements tore families apart. Niles and Pietros—together from the womb, birthed minutes apart, raised with eachother by their side—everything they had endured together, shattered beneath the weight of the crown.
No, none of it brought him peace of mind. Not when he thought about his own family. Not when he thought about his daughters.
Chapter 17
STEPPING OUT OF THE Ludorum Castle, attended by a couple of the Queen’s guard, wouldn’t be the first time Riffin’s choices were put into question.
Frankly, he questioned himself too. When the bodies of his countrymen remained strewn across the ground, albeit in far lesser numbers than their enemies, he debated turning back and returning inside.
But duty won out over feeling, as it was always meant to. Ridding his men of their Lionessan uniforms to sell the lie of being rebels meant that few could discern the friend from the foes. Lying on the ground, having succumbed to their wounds, there was no distinguishing their peoples. In death, they were all the same, having fought a battle in someone else’s war and perished in their attempt.
He, however, knew his men. He marched men into battle knowing precisely who they were. He knew their names and he knew something or other about their families. He could pick out his own men from those that would be his enemies.
“What are you doing out here?”
Enamoured by the body on the ground, stepping over puddles of blood, he hadn’t noticed Jared.
The few crowds paid him little mind, far too busy with signalling out their loved ones amongst the bodies, retrieving them for burial. Family did their best not to shed a tear openly—Riffin found it crushing. He knew the pain of bottling his feelings, putting off grieving for as long as possible, knowing that politics took presedence.
For him, he needed to keep Thane’s memory at a distance, knowing plenty had yet to be done in Ludorum. For them, they couldn’t be seen grieving for men and women who would be marked as traitors by their surviving King, or risk having been sympathisers to their cause and complicit in their actions.
Instead, they remained tight-lipped, doing their utmost to keep the swell of emotion from their faces, and went about collecting their family for burial without the sadness they deserved.
“Identifying the bodies,” Riffin declared with a sigh. “Some family might’ve been so bold as to collect their own but I won’t have our men lie amongst those left behind.”
Taking a deep breath, allowing the weight of his position to momentarily fall from his shoulde
rs, he turned to Jared. He’d often heard he wasn’t the most skilled fighter amongst his crew. The bruises around his eye, across his temple, the gash along his cheek and the slice against his neck, proved he had only gotten worse with age. But he was alive. That was more than what could be said about those who lined the streets.
His gaze fell, only to stop short at the crimson stain on his shirt. The blossom was large, about the size of Riffin’s hand. “Are you wounded?” he asked.
Jared glanced down, having followed his line of sight. He drew his shirt up ever so slightly, offering a smile, “Tended to already,” he said. The gash looked deep, with skin drawn together tight with thick, black thread. “Nothing to worry about.”
Riffin cocked his head to one side. “I worry about your wife,” he said. “What pain she might inflict when she finds out I put her husband in harm’s way.”
The two continued to walk together, the only break in their conversation coming from when Riffin pointed out yet another of their men to those that followed. “Kara understands,” Jared said.
“She would be a great deal less understanding if we’d lost you here today,” he said. “She’s not beyond slaughtering a Prince—I’m sure of that.” He raked his fingers through his hair, sighing. “This life should be behind you,” he said. “I won’t blame you if you decide to take a step back.”
Jared hung his head, walking shoulder to shoulder with him. “I’ve done that before,” he said. “I sailed away from everything once before. Like it or not, something or other has always drawn me back to land.”
Riffin lowered himself beside a comrade. A man that had stood beside him. He wished he could return too.
“With Kara, leaving everything behind made the most sense,” he continued. “When I left without her, she was my harbour. I was willing to do whatever was necessary to get back to her and to know she was safe.”
Riffin rose again. He knew that—he felt it even.
“That feeling grew when Malia was born,” he said. Jared’s shoulders slumped forward, his hands buried in his coat, “Your mother and father have given us a great deal,” he said, “but loyalty and gratitude isn’t what keeps us here—love does.”