The fog began to thin out the lower we walked, and after about an hour of walking, I could finally see well enough to see where we were going. The trees had also thinned out, and the slope was now less severe, although we still headed downward. I could see the small town that I’d seen from the outcrop. It was much closer now although the people moving around still looked like ants from this height. I was just about to ask Aaricka about the town when I heard a noise in the undergrowth to my right. Aaricka stopped, holding up her head. Whatever it was, she heard it too.
I scanned the undergrowth until I saw it, a big, fat, juicy rabbit. I glanced at Aaricka, not wanting to make another mistake, and she nodded her head slightly. I needed no other encouragement. I slipped an arrow into the bow and fired, getting it right through the heart!
“Brilliant!” said Aaricka, running over to the dead animal. She pulled the arrow out and handed it back to me but kept the rabbit for herself.
“I still don’t understand why you couldn’t have just turned into a tiger once you knew it was a real rabbit and gotten it yourself,” I said, wiping the blood from the arrow on my tunic and placing it back into the sheath.”
“Because, dummy. I might have forgotten about the rabbit and just eaten you. Of course, if you want me to do that next time, I’ll happily oblige.”
She gave me such a cheeky grin, and I remembered how I had felt when she smiled at me the day before. My heart lurched in my chest as the same mix of complicated feelings surged through me. She was so stunning with her long white hair flowing freely behind her and the joy on her face that if I could have bottled that moment to keep, I would have.
“Come on. I think I hear another one.”
She gambolled ahead playfully, reminding me of her daughter. I could see where Nikka got her playful spirit, and yet with Aaricka, it broke through the surface so rarely that when it did, it was a pleasure to see. The morning flew by so quickly that when I checked my watch, I was surprised to see how late it was.
“Lunchtime,” I said, eyeing the brace of rabbits and a couple of birds we had killed. “Shall I make a fire and we can eat one now.”
“No!” she replied forcefully, the playfulness of before draining away from her to be replaced by an altogether more serious expression.
“Oh, I forgot you like to eat your meat raw. I could go climb a tree or something while you change so you can eat if you like?”
“Ha, and have you see me naked again when I change back. Not a chance.”
“I’d not even thought about that,” I said although now that she’d put the thought in my mind, it was a hard image to forget.
“It’s not that anyway. I don’t want the villagers down there to see us.”
I looked out down to the town. “Why ever not?”
“Because they will know where I am, and they’ll make me go back,” she said, sitting down on a rock and gazing wistfully out over the view.
“Who’s they?” I asked sitting next to her.
“My parents. The rest of Charlesville.”
“Charlesville?”
“That’s the name of the village,” she replied, idly running her fingers through a patch of grass.
“Your parents don’t know where you are? Don’t you think they will be worried about you?”
“They didn’t want me to fight. They wanted us all to sit there with blinkers on, pretending that none of this is happening, that we are all not slowly starving to death. I had a big argument with them one night and just left. I had a few friends that I knew would come with me, and I took Nikka and fled up the mountain before anyone could stop me.”
I could see tears forming in her eyes as she spoke. It didn’t make much sense to me, but it was obviously a big deal to her.
“Was it really all that bad?”
“You see that building there?” she asked pointing to a large industrial unit at the edge of the town. It was pretty hard to miss, as it was so big.
“Yes.”
“That is a factory, was a factory until one of the machines broke down. Almost everyone in our town worked in that factory. It made chocolate.”
“Chocolate?” If you’d have asked me what the small town made I’d have come up with a hundred things before chocolate.
“Yeah. We were famous for it. Look at the fields there. We had hundreds of dairy cows producing milk. We get the cocoa beans and sugar from the warmer parts of the Spadelands, and we put it all together to make chocolate. Chocolate bars, chocolate drops, hot chocolate. We made it all, and then we exported it to all the four kingdoms.”
I looked to the fields where she was pointing. There were still some cows grazing but not the hundreds she had mentioned.
“So what happened?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Spades are not exactly the most technological of beings. For hundreds of years, we made chocolate using wooden machinery and sent out maybe a couple of thousand bars a year. About fifty years ago, we invested in some proper machinery from the Hearts and expanded. The popularity of the chocolate grew, and the population of the town grew accordingly. Before the machines broke down, we were sending hundreds of thousands of chocolate bars out a day. One day, the machinery stopped, and no one knew how to fix it. When it had happened before, we just called the company who supplied the machinery, and they came and either fixed it or replaced it. A couple of months ago, it happened again, but when we called the Heart company, they told us that the price had increased ten-fold. It nearly crippled us, but we paid. The factory had only been back up and running a couple of days when another part that had been working perfectly before broke too. When we called the Hearts, they said that we’d have to pay again; but, of course, they’d already taken all of our money. Within the space of a week, most of the villagers had lost their incomes, and none of us could afford to eat. We pleaded with the Hearts to change their minds, but they refused.”
“You said that the second part had been working perfectly before they came? It sounds like they might have sabotaged it.”
“That’s what I thought, but I have no way to prove it. I just know that there was nothing wrong with it before they came to us.”
“Why would they want to sabotage you?”
“The money, I guess. I’ve heard stories that the Queen of Hearts is doing this to factories in all the lands. She knows that we all rely on their technology.”
I’d heard the same stories. The Queen was exporting technology at ten times the price of before and refusing to pay full price for goods coming in. It wasn’t just this little town that was losing its life’s blood. Towns like this all over the Club, Spade, and Diamond Kingdoms were collapsing. That’s when I finally understood Aaricka and the others’ position. I knew why they were fighting.
“I want to go into the town!” I said.
“Why?” She looked at me in shock. “You can’t go down there.”
“I want to see your factory myself. I can’t say I’ll definitely know if the part you speak of has been tampered with, but I took a little engineering in school, so I might be able to fix it.”
She looked at me as if I’d sprouted three heads. “You took engineering?”
“One of the perks of royalty, I guess. We had tutors from the Heartlands come to teach us. I learned a little bit about technology.”
“I don’t need you to fix it. After we kill the queen, we are going to go to her factory and take the part we need.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier if you let me see if I can fix it first?”
She eyed me up, and I could see she was deliberating it.
“We can’t be spotted,” she said eventually. “Clubs don’t come to Charlesville. It’s not a tourist destination. The zeppelin often misses us completely. If they see you, they will know something is up. I can’t let them see me either. My parents would lock me up rather than have me go back up to the mountain.”
“So we go in quietly. Is the factory still in use?” I looked over at the chimneys.
There was no smoke coming from them.
“No. I know a secret way in, though. We’ll have to go in tonight after midnight. That’s when the guard leaves his post. Another one arrives at eight in the morning.” She looked excited at the prospect, and I had to admit to feeling the same way myself. I’d spent my whole life being the perfect royal prince. It was about time I broke the rules.
We had a quick lunch of berries and raw roots that I foraged for us. Aaricka chewed down on them slowly as if each bite was going to make her sick.
“I guess tigers don’t eat berries and roots usually?” I asked, nibbling on a berry of my own.
“Not usually, no,” she replied, eyeing up the rabbits hungrily.
“Can you eat them raw in your human form?”
“No. My stomach can’t digest them properly, and they taste pretty disgusting. I only enjoy raw meat when I’m a tiger.”
“How come you didn’t let Nikka eat the deer raw?” I asked genuinely interested.
“Nikka is a bear cub like her father. You’ve probably noticed yourself that two different species of Spade can mate. The royal family is the prime example. I’ve never known such a menagerie of animals in one family. Goodness knows what magic is going on there. Before the king and queen got together, different species mated, but it was always kept behind closed doors. Nowadays, it’s much more prevalent. Sometimes the child takes on the form of the mother, sometimes the father, and sometimes, as in the royal family, it takes on neither and is a completely different animal altogether.”
It was a whole different world here than I was used to and talking to Aaricka made me realise just how sheltered I was in the Clublands. Sure, I’d come to the palace in the Spade capital plenty of times, but I’d not really gotten to know the Spades at all. Not once, had I ever seen a member of the royal family shift into their animal form, and to be honest, it was not something I’d ever really thought about. It was no secret that Leo was a lion, but if he’d walked up to me in his lion form, it would not have crossed my mind that it was he.
“Nikka is an omnivore,” said Aaricka. “She’ll eat anything just like her father.”
A vision of Ulix entered my head. I’d thought he was a rhino, but he could have been a bear. Jealousy raged through me, which was ridiculous. I’d only just met Aaricka and Nikka, but for some reason, the thought of Ulix being Nikka’s Father was abhorrent. Nikka was adorable and Ulix... well, he wasn’t.
“Is Ulix Nikka’s father?” I asked as nonchalantly as I could muster, not really wanting to hear her answer if it had been in the affirmative.
A peal of laughter from Aaricka made the green-eyed monster within me fall away.
“Ulix? Ha, no. Nikka’s father left as soon as he found out I was pregnant.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said but I realised it wasn’t really true.
“Don’t be,” she chuckled, “He was a no-hoper.” She was silent for a few minutes before breaking out into giggles again “Ulix! Can you imagine it?”
“Not really,” I replied truthfully. “You are way too good for him. You are beautiful and feisty and brave. Ulix is a big lump.”
I expected her to carry on laughing, but one look at the expression on her face made me realise I’d said too much. I’d worn my heart on my sleeve without meaning to.
“Nikka is way too cute to be Ulix’s daughter,” I said, just to cover up the awkwardness I was now feeling.
“Ulix is up on the mountain with us because of my brother.”
Sadness came over her, and she faltered over the last few words. I could see her tough exterior begin to crack. She turned her head away from me, hiding the tears that I knew were falling. Whatever was going on with her had nothing to do with Ulix or me. Something had triggered this sudden change in emotion. I gave her the time she needed to be able to recoup and tell me the story.
“My brother...” she eventually said, wiping her eyes on a the back of her hand. “He was one of the managers at the factory. When he lost his job, he killed himself.”
It suddenly became apparent why Aaricka was so committed to bringing the Hearts down. She blamed them for the death of her brother.
My heart went out to her. I could feel the pain in her voice as she told me that he had gone to the Heartlands to beg with the Queen of Hearts to reconsider selling us the part we needed more cheaply, only to be kicked out of the palace. The last straw had been when he lost his house because he couldn’t afford the rent anymore and went back to their parent’s house only to be called useless and a no-hoper by them. He’d taken his own life that very night.
I didn’t know what to do for her, but the desire to comfort her was overwhelming. I pulled her into a hug and held her close, stroking her head. Surprisingly, she let me. I could feel her shaking with sobs now that the dam had broken and I realised that this was about more than just a part for a factory. It was about justice for her brother. I sighed, knowing that whatever we did, it would never be enough to fill the void in her. I also knew that if I wasn’t careful, I was going to become embroiled in something so much bigger than I could hope to cope with.
We sat like that for hours through twilight as the darkness rolled in. Eventually, Aaricka fell asleep on my chest, so I lay back in the soft grass and closed my eyes to get a little sleep myself before we headed into the factory.
8th February
“Wake up!”
I opened an eye groggily to see a patchwork of twinkling lights above me. It took a few moments to realise that it was the sky and the lights were stars. I’d never seen so many. Thousands of them stretching out into infinity. I’d have stayed there all night just to watch them if it hadn’t been for Aaricka whispering insistently in my ear.
“What time is it?” I asked although neither of us had watches. Hearts were the ones that used timepieces either on their wrists or on a chain. They were a luxury in the Clublands, and it was obvious why the Spades didn’t wear them. They’d fall off every time they changed into an animal.
“It’s late enough.”
Gone was the scared young woman I’d held earlier as she wept. Now she was a warrior, ready to pounce. I followed her silently down the path to the village, keeping right behind her as I could barely see anything, unlike her with her cat-like vision.
The village was deathly silent, and the only light I could see was the soft moon and starlight that bathed the village in a soft blue glow. The factory was easy to spot, even with my poor eyesight. The massive building dominated the whole village, standing easily as big, if not bigger than the castle I lived in back home.
Aaricka took me to what looked like the back of the factory and climbed onto a fire escape. At first, I thought she was going to make me climb right up to the roof, but about half way along, she stepped off onto a thin ledge and began to shimmy along.
Her feline ability to walk the tiny ledge kept her from falling off, but there was no way, with my big clumsy feet, I’d manage the same feat.
“I’ll never get along there,” I whispered to her, but she didn’t reply. Pretty soon the darkness swallowed her up, leaving me alone on the fire escape, unsure of what to do. I heard her open a window and crawl through. I was just about to climb over onto the ledge when a fire door opened beside me, and Aaricka popped her head out.
“Are you coming in or what?” she whispered.
If it was dark outside the factory, without the moonlight, it was pitch-black inside. Not only could I not see Aaricka; I also couldn’t feel her in front of me.
“Aaricka!” I called out quietly into the darkness. “I can’t see!”
“Here!” I felt something long and thin thrust into my hands.
“What is it?” I asked. It felt like a heavy metal cylinder.
“It’s a flashlight, silly. The Hearts invented them. They gave us a few with our first order of machinery. Press the button.”
I felt along the edge of the flashlight until I found what I was looking for. I pressed down, and light floode
d the area in front of me.
“Woah!” I said, gazing down at the flashlight in awe. We used oil lamps in the castle, and although I’d seen electric lights in other buildings, I’d never seen one not connected to anything before. “How does it work? Does it run on Diamond magic?”
“Batteries!” she called over her shoulder as she padded off along a long corridor in front of me. I had to run to keep up with her, but at least now, I could see where she was.
“In here is the mixing room,” she said, coming to a door. “This is where I used to work. It’s one of the mixers that’s broken.”
She opened the door into a massive hall. We had emerged onto a balcony, but sweeping the flashlight around showed me just how big the room was. The double height room had hundreds of huge pots with what I assumed to be mixers next to each other. Millions of working parts must have gone together to make it all work. A stairway ran from our level to the floor, and Aaricka took it with me following closely behind her.
“We can’t turn the lights on because someone might see. Shine the flashlight over there,” she said pointing to the far corner.”
I followed her as she ran through the room, dodging the machinery and finding paths through the equipment to the broken part.
“This is the bit that’s broken,” she said, coming to a stop next to a large silver coloured box.
“What does it do?” Lines of buttons filled the front of it, and it boggled my mind just how amazing Heart technology was.
“It’s the control centre for this whole floor. If one of the mixers broke, we’d be able to continue with the others, but if this breaks, we lose all the mixers in one go.”
Looking at the sheer size of it, it was clear that we would not be able to just go to the Hearts and steal one. It was bigger than I was and bolted to the floor.
“You’d never be able to steal something this size without being noticed. You would never be able to get it back from the Heart Kingdom.” The magnitude of the job ahead was overwhelming.
“It’s not the whole machine that’s broken,” she replied, pressing something on the front. Something small and black came out and fell into her hand. “Just this bit.”
Seven of Clubs (War and Suits Book 6) Page 5