by Sofia Vargas
“But that’s what we’re doing,” Yuri said. “We’re tired of answering to a king that’s hundreds of miles away. We’re tired of our people not being able to have high ranking positions because they don’t have the right abilities. We’re tired of not being able to do everything we hope and dream we can do.”
I looked at my father. There was visible distress on his face. I saw it on Arie’s face, too. I couldn’t image what it felt like as a king or future queen to hear in how many awful ways their ruling was inadequate to such a large group of people.
“I’m sorry to hear you feel this way,” Father said.
Not in a way that I knew would lead into him defending the traditions, nor in a sarcastic or hurtful way. It was said as a pure, genuine apology. In a manner that made Kaia look saddened with the way they had explained things.
“We’re not looking for apologies or explanations,” Yuri said. “A reason for agreeing to this meeting was to explain why the South will be completely breaking off from North Aetheria and becoming its own country.”
“And there’s no way this can be prevented?” Xaden said.
“We’re afraid not,” said Oak.
“Then go,” Arie said, standing from her chair. “What kept you around so long? If you don’t want to be a part of our country we don’t want you to be either.”
“They need help in learning how to train high priority abilities,” Rade said for them. “That’s it isn’t it? You know that you’re still not ready to break off completely without a little more help from us.”
No one on the opposite side of the table answered but through their silence, we knew what he said was true. I touched Arie’s arm and she slowly sat back down in her chair.
“Okay,” my father said. “We’ll teach whomever you want to be taught how to train high priority abilities.”
“What?” Xaden said. “We’re going to give them what they want and be done with it?”
“Yes,” Father said. “I’d rather let them go and try to make themselves happy rather than force them to stay under my rule and be miserable.”
Everyone was surprised by his reaction. I smiled and felt exceedingly proud of him.
“Thank you,” Oak said.
I could tell that he didn’t quite believe what was happening.
“This meeting has not gone the way we thought it would.”
He stood up and stretched his hand over the table toward my father. Generals Rade and Xeden kept a watchful eye on it, but Father stood and shook it without another thought.
“Thank you for understanding.”
My father nodded his head.
“If you’d please excuse us for a moment,” Yuri said, also standing up. “We had one more matter to bring up, but I think it’s best if we quickly discuss outside whether we want to bring it up or not.”
“Of course,” Father said.
Everyone on their side of the table stood and filtered around us. They walked out of the room and through the front door. I stood up and stretched my legs. Everyone else did, too.
“You were great,” I said, walking to my father and giving him a hug.
He kissed the top of my head. “I’m sure the person I owe my ability to see where they are coming from is you.”
I let go of him and smiled, but then we heard yelling from outside.
“It doesn’t sound like things are going well out there,” Dresden said, walking over to us.
He shook hands with my father. I wrapped my arms around Dresden’s waist.
“If some of them feel so strongly they should talk about it with us,” I said.
The front door slammed open and a person with glowing skin walked through toward us. His skin gradually turned brighter as he got closer to us. I let go of Dresden and took a step toward him.
“What’s the problem out there?” I said to him.
He was taken aback at the sight of me but regained his composure. The fact that I recognized him hit me like a slap in the face.
“No,” Dresden said, pulling me closer to him.
The action confirmed my dread.
“No!” I screamed.
His body turned from a bright white to red.
“What are you—?”
There was a rushing sound and a flash of light. The angry looking lady from the end of the table appeared in front of us.
“Everyone, hold onto each other,” she said, wrangling all of us together.
All of us squeezed into her arms seconds before we were engulfed in light. I was alarmed by the disappearance of the ground from beneath my feet, but the shock was short lived and the light almost immediately started to dim and I felt hard surface below me again. Everything was still and we could hear the tail end of an explosion in the distance.
My legs shook so I kept a tight hold on Dresden and my father. I squeezed my eyes shut, so grateful for the solid earth.
“What the hell were you thinking?” someone yelled.
I heard feet slam against the ground and fade away.
“We’re so sorry,” said Oak’s voice.
I opened my eyes to see the rest of the Council running toward us.
“We tried to stop them—”
“So was that the plan?” Father said, pointing to the side.
I looked to where he pointed and saw the remains of the cabin we had been standing in. Someone was running toward it.
“Talk us into giving you what you want or blow us up?”
“No,” Kaia said. “Please, not all of us agreed to what happened.”
I looked around the group. There was a sinking feeling in my chest.
“But it was still part of someone’s plan,” Father said.
I couldn’t believe the ferocity I saw in his face. I let go of Dresden. Tears start running down my cheeks. I carefully looked over everyone again.
“Emma?” Dresden said, touching my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“All of you are Winged,” Yuri said to my father. “No one would have died.”
“That was your reasoning for thinking it would be okay?” Xaden said with almost as much anger as my father. “Because we wouldn’t have died?”
“Please,” I said to everyone.
It sounded like a mere croak coming out of my throat.
I made my way to the middle of the group of people yelling at each other.
“You can’t imagine the injuries we would have sustained,” Rade said. “The weeks of pain we would have gone through to heal. What were you hoping to accomplish with a stunt like that?”
“Shut up!” I screamed over everyone’s voices.
My vision swam in and out of focus through my tears. Everyone stopped arguing and looked at me in alarm. I wiped tears from my cheeks, too angry to break down into sobs. I was afraid of the answer I would get to the question I was about to ask.
“Where’s Arabella?”
* * *
I ran across the field back to the remains of the cabin. The only thought in my head was to get to Arie as quickly as possible. When I approached the huge pile of ruins I saw that the person who had run to it earlier was already pulling out a body. He heard me approaching and looked over at me. It was Taegan.
“You,” I said, watching him pull his friend out of the mess.
He heaved him over his shoulders. The body was discolored and his head lolled unconsciously.
“I’m sorry,” Taegan said, looking at me, then at the rest of the group who had caught up. “To all of you.”
He walked away with his friend across his shoulders. All of us gathered at the mess of the cabin. I walked to the spot that Taegan had found his friend and start lifting up chunks of wood. Dresden appeared next to me and did the same.
“We’ll find her, Emma,” he said.
He took on the particularly large chunks of wood. I nodded. I knew that he was fine with me not saying anything back to him.
In no time there were more hands around us lifting up the chunks of wood—light and dark
skinned hands. I saw that not only was my father and his generals helping us move the wood, but all the members of the Council were, too. Oak put his hand on my shoulder as he passed by me to help Dresden lift a ceiling beam.
In my head I tried to remember where Arie had been standing when the guy had exploded. I was pretty sure she hadn’t moved too far from the chair she had been sitting in, but I couldn’t pinpoint her exact location in my memory.
“The blast probably would have blown her across the room,” someone said.
Everyone tried to figure out where her body should be.
“So we’re probably going to have to clear as much of this area as we can. The blast could have thrown her anywhere.”
Everyone worked eternally, clearing out wood and being careful to see if they could find any sign of her. I thought about how much Viper was going to hate me once he found out what I let happen. He would kill me for letting Arie get so hurt.
“He’s not going to hate you,” Dresden said, working across from me.
I looked at him and wondered if I had been talking aloud.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said.
He reached a hand out and brushed a tear off my cheek.
“As much as you think he will, Viper will never find it in his heart to truly hate you. I’ve noticed that you seem to be kind of special to him. Though he may be quite upset…” he gave the wreckage a sideways glance.
I took the step between us and kissed him.
“Thank you,” I said.
It took what seemed to be a very long time, but I was the first to see a sign of Arie. They were right in predicting that she had been blasted across the room. I was a significant distance from where Taegan had dug out his friend when I moved a piece wood and saw a patch of blond hair. It was protruding from beneath a particularly large pile of debris.
“There she is,” I said breathlessly. “I found her.”
Dresden looked from where he was standing and nodded. He moved to me and quickly picked up the pace moving the wood. We were joined by Oak and Yuri. Everyone else stood back to wait. Within a matter of minutes we removed most everything that had fallen on top of her. All that was left was the heavy wood of the table.
From what I guessed, Arie missed the ride out of the cabin and took cover under the table. It protected her enough to keep her whole, but it was blasted to pieces. Once we cleared it I looked away from the sight of her. Her body was in much the same state that Dresden’s had been in when he had come face to face with the same blast. If I hadn’t known she was Winged and would be able to repair herself, I would have thought she was dead.
Oak took off his coat and draped it over her body. He bent over and lifted her out of the remainder of the pile.
“She’ll be fine,” he said. “We need to get her to a hospital; it doesn’t look like she’s breathing. Some things probably need to be set back in place before she can start healing.”
I watched him step out of the devastated remains of the cabin.
“She’s going to be okay,” said Dresden, holding his hand out to me. “She’s in for a hellish couple of weeks.”
I took his hand and we made our way out of the mess. We climbed out and walked to the others standing by. Oak kept Arie wrapped up in his arms and took her to the lady that had teleported us out of the cabin. Without a word she stepped forward with outstretched arms.
“I’ll get her to the hospital,” she said.
Oak nodded and lowered Arie’s feet to the ground letting the lady support the upper half of her body. There was a flash of light and they disappeared.
All of us stood where we were, not knowing what to do or say next.
Oak stepped forward. “I don’t know what it’s worth at this point, but we are truly sorry for everything that’s happened here. All of that was a back-up plan that some of us thought we’d never resort to.”
My father now took a step forward. I held my breath not having a clue what he would say. The anger on his face still lingered.
“The thought that you would come up with a plan to hurt us that badly,” he said as he pointed to the destroyed cabin, “makes me angry in a way I hoped I’d never be.”
I tried to take a step forward and say something, but Dresden put his hand on my shoulder and held me back.
“Give him a moment.”
I stood still and let him.
“We knew none of you would die—” Yuri said, but my father cut him off.
“Did you see her?” he said, pointing to the spot Arie had disappeared from. “Over the next weeks Arabella is going to have to endure pain you cannot imagine. And to think, you wished that on all of us.”
“We didn’t wish it on you,” Kaia said. “Oak keeps trying to tell you that some of us didn’t—”
“Oh,” Father cuts in again, “some of you didn’t want to hurt us that badly. You know, that doesn’t make me feel much better.”
He glared around at the group. No one said anything so he continued.
“Weren’t you just ranting about how much better you think your Council is compared to our government? I believed the point of the Council was to come to a group consensus. So if that is not true, this plan had to have been developed behind the backs of some of you. Which doesn’t make me feel better about the situation.”
Oak looked like he was about to say something just as the lady who took off with Arie reappeared.
“I got her to the hospital,” she said with a smile on her face. “The doctor said that it looks like she needs quite a bit of work in getting her body set back in place but it’s nothing they can’t handle.”
A wave of relief washed over the group at this news. From the way the tension in my body lightened at the update, I figured a lot of the anxiety among everyone was due to not knowing Arie’s fate.
A number of us exhaled breaths we hadn’t known we were holding.
“We realize and understand how upset you are about what happened here,” Oak said, taking advantage of the relieved silence. “It was our mistake. Obviously there are still a few kinks to work out before we can be a fully functional country.”
My father listened.
“We hope everything can still be worked out between us,” Oak said. “We’re working hard to create a country our people can be happy with, but without a little more of your help I fear it will take a lot longer, if at all. We know by now your faith in us is hanging by thread, but we will do what we can to gain that trust back.”
I could see the regret on everyone’s faces. Father looked around, too, and saw the same thing I did. The expression on his face softened.
“We’re not going to run into any more surprises?”
The members of the Council shook their heads.
“Okay, then,” Father said. “I see no reason why we can’t move past this.”
It took all my power not to run to him and give him the biggest hug I could manage. I looked at Dresden. He smiled at me. I was starting to forget that not too long ago he hadn’t smiled every time he looked at me. I settled for squeezing his hand in mine.
XIII
A conclusion
My heart hammered inside my chest. The gates to the campsite came into view. Dresden noticed my distress and put an arm around my shoulders.
“It’ll be fine,” he said.
I nodded and took a deep breath. I could not bring myself to imagine the state that Viper might be in at that very moment. The gates were pulled open to let us into the site. My eyes did a quick sweep over the area. I didn’t see him. I breathed.
“See?” Dresden said.
We put our horses away, slung our packs over our backs, and walked to our tents. The whole time Viper was nowhere to be found.
“He’s probably visiting Arabella. It’s just as I predicted.”
I noticed that Dresden was rambling. It made me uncomfortable.
“He’s probably not angry at all…”
I heard his voice trail away and looked at him
. He was looking straight forward. My eyes followed his gaze. Viper was leaning against one of the poles of my tent.
I gulped and took a few more steps forward. “Viper—”
He put a hand up to stop me. I saw the furnace in his eyes and my heart sank. I could only obey his unspoken demand.
“Her first trip and participation in something important to her future rule,” he said, “and she ends up going to the hospital in a state that most people believe should have killed her.”
I tried to speak again, “I know—”
Once again he stopped me.
“Could you not bring yourself to look out for her and try to prevent something like this from happening?”
My eyes began to water. “I did try,” the words rushed out of my mouth. “Things happened so fast—”
“So fast that you couldn’t make sure everyone got out safely?” he was yelling now.
I felt the tears run down my cheeks and couldn’t find my voice.
Dresden picked up my slack and took a step forward. “We couldn’t help it that things went wrong the way they did.”
He glared at Viper, ignoring the hand that shut me up so easily.
“It’s not like we left her in there on purpose. Part of her job was to stay alert and take necessary action.”
“Oh, so it was all her fault?” Viper said.
People around us were discretely watching the yelling match while they pretended to go about their business.
“It most certainly wasn’t anyone else’s,” Dresden said.
I could tell that Viper was racking his brain for a response but could not find one.
“If she’s smart,” Dresden said, “and I know she is, she’ll learn from this. She’ll learn to sharpen her reaction time and not let fear paralyze her, which I’m sure is exactly what happened back there.”
Viper opened his mouth to say something, but this time it was Dresden that held up his hand to silence him.
“You weren’t there and have no idea what we went through,” he said. “What you probably don’t realize is that it was Emma that noticed Arabella was missing and did so only seconds after we got out. It was Emma that was at the head of the group when we ran back to get her. Emma was the one that found her in the wreckage. Emma held her fretful hand through the meeting so that our future queen could start building her image of refinement and poise. Don’t you dare say that she abandoned Arabella or didn’t look after her. The truth is that the explosion was regrettably the one time she took her eyes off her.”