War of the Wilted

by Amber Mitchell

  “Rayce, stop this!” I yell, but this time I can’t keep my voice from shaking.

  What’s gotten into him? Why is the man that said he loves me attacking me?

  My face and body grow hot as my heart pumps panic through my limbs. I don’t know what to do; I don’t know how to help him. I search his eyes for a hint of a reason, of understanding, but the man looking back at me is a stranger. There is none of his warmth, no hesitance. Just this overwhelming and frighteningly intense focus that makes my fingers quake and nearly slip from the sword.

  In response, he pulls his blade back to swing at me again, the scar on his face rippling as he hardens his jaw, but before he can, Arlo slams into him, knocking them both into a wall. Rayce lets out a growl, straining against Arlo’s grasp.

  “I could use a little help,” Arlo says.

  Dropping my sword, I run over to help restrain him, the hope that had blossomed in my chest withering and dying before my very eyes. Watching Rayce’s face twist in fury, seeing the way he struggles against Arlo with all his might steals my breath, cutting through my skin keener than any blade ever could.

  Whatever broke in him, I don’t know how to mend it.

  Marin runs over to his left, pinning his shoulder to the wall by pushing against him with her entire body, and I take the right. As I hold onto him, feeling his muscles strain and twist against me, I fight back tears.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Marin asks.

  “I don’t know,” Arlo says.

  “Rayce,” I whisper, and just the sound of his name brings on a fresh wave of pain. A tear spills over, rolling its hot path down my cheek. “Stop this. Whatever’s happening with you, stop. Come back to us. Come back to me.”

  My hand trembling, I reach out to touch his sticky face. Sweat slicks his skin, pouring from his forehead and mixing with the blood and dirt already packed in. His eyes are those of a wild thing. He tosses his head back and forth, but the moment my hand comes into view, he turns his glower toward me.

  He’s looked at me so many times in the past few months I’ve known him that I thought I’d seen all of his expressions, but the hatred in his eyes nearly makes me retreat. Is he really lost?

  He can’t be. We need him. We’re so close to the world he dreamed of creating. All he needs to do is wake up and take it.

  “I’m right here,” I whisper. “I said I wouldn’t give up on you and I’m still not giving up you.”

  Gathering up the last of my nerve, I brush my hand on his burning cheek. The second our skin touches, his beautiful eyes, warm like melted chocolate, flash a strange blue color. Just like before. The hue reminds me of something, but in my current mental state, I can’t place it.

  A lock of hair falls onto his face, so I reach up and tuck it back before returning to his cheek.

  He squeezes his eyes, clenching his jaw, and stops struggling against our hold. “Arlo…” His gaze passes over him to Marin who is pinning his outstretched arm to the wall. “Marin…” Finally, he settles back on me, his gaze hazy and he blinks a few times. “Rose? Where am I?”

  I can breathe the second he says my name, like he was holding me under some kind of spell.

  “Rayce? What’s wrong with you?” Marin asks.

  “Are you in your right mind? Can we let you free?” Arlo asks.

  Rayce shakes his head, wincing as confusion passes over his face at us all holding him against the wall, and he nods.

  “Y-Yes,” he says. “I feel like myself. I don’t…know what happened to me. Why?”

  Arlo lets go of him, grabbing his sister gently by the shoulder and putting her behind him as he eyes Rayce cautiously. Only I remain standing in front of him, scanning his tattered and dirty clothes for any new injuries, and the wrinkles on his forehead, trying to predict his next move.

  “Do you remember what you just did?” I ask him.

  His eyes search my face. “Yes, I…” They grow wider and he turns his gaze to the emperor bleeding and motionless on the floor behind me. “I-I don’t know what came over me. I…” He puts his hand over his mouth, barring whatever shock it held from our view, and clenches his eyes closed, sucking in air like he’s desperate for it.

  “It’s okay,” I whisper, looking up at his face. “I’m right here. Look at me.”

  His beard feels scratchy against my palm, almost a tickle, but I don’t withdraw from it. His eyes open at my touch, and I gaze up into them, trying hard to ignore the blood splattered across his face, his greasy, clumped hair after spending nearly a week locked away with no sunlight, his shallow cheekbones, cracking lips, and the pallid shade of his face.

  We stay locked in this way, in this moment of realization as his hopes he shared with me when we were making honey crisps echoes back in my head. He wraps his arms around me, pressing me to him, his whole body shaking. It’s impossible to tell if his tremors come from exhaustion, adrenaline, sorrow, or the fact that he just won the war. Perhaps it all of those things. Even his heavy breathing doesn’t clue me in.

  He weaves his fingers through my hair, placing his palm on the back of my head, and tucks me closer. The scents of sweat, blood, and rotting hay wash over me as I bury my face against his disgusting tunic, but it doesn’t matter. The idea that he might have disappeared from me is too overwhelming to care about anything else besides his nearness.

  His lips brush against the tip of my ear. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me, I’m so sorry.”

  He repeats those same words over and over into my hair until I’m bathed in them, and curls into me, resting his head on mine as we try to remember how to breathe. His heart finally starts to calm as it listens to mine whisper to it.

  “It’s going to be okay.” I want to believe those words, but wanting and doing are two very different things. Whatever happened to him just now wasn’t normal. It can’t be a coincidence that I caught his eyes flashing blue twice today. I don’t know what it means, and that scares me more than I’m capable of expressing, a wallowing, all-consuming pit in my stomach. “We’re going to find a way to make it okay. Do you have any memory of a few minutes ago?”

  He stiffens in my arms, his breath catching, and I instantly regret my question.

  “I just remember being angry.” His next words come out whisper soft. “I-I wanted to hurt you.” The comforting weight of his chin on top of my head moves. “I wanted to hurt all of you…” His voice falters. “And I have no idea why. I wanted to hurt him.”

  He stumbles away from my grasp, nearly toppling over as he moves toward what’s left of the emperor bleeding behind me.

  “Uncle…” Rayce’s voice coats my world in a glimmer of the pain that must be welling inside of him, weighed down with sorrow. “What have I done? Forgive me. All of you, please…forgive me.”

  His back is to me as he drops to his knees into a gruesome pool of blood on the ground, the sound of his hitching breath loud in the quiet hallway. He leans over, reaching out to him, and I hear it then, among the unsteady sound of his breathing, and realize as he presses his forehead to his uncle’s shoulder that he is crying.

  As long as I’ve known this man, I’ve seen him agonize over leading, huddling over paperwork, bowing at the feet of those who have lost their families to his orders, working to heal the wounded until his hands are coated in their blood, banged up, defeated, suffering the loss of people he loves, but I have never, not once, seen him cry.

  My hands shake with the sound of it, my knees trembling as I walk over to the other side of him and kneel down, putting my hand on his arm.

  “Of course we forgive you,” I whisper. My fingers tighten on his arm as I pull him closer. “You clearly weren’t in your right mind. This isn’t you. This isn’t the person you are and we will never judge you for it.”

  As I drag his hand closer, he looks up, the residue of tears shining on his cheeks, and he nearly collapses on me. The weight of him is nothing compared to the overwhelming sadness that crashes over me seeing how defeat
ed he looks. This was not the end he dreamed of. After a moment, I help him to his feet, but he still leans on me like I’m the only thing keeping him upright. I might be.

  “The question is what happened?” Marin asks, peeking from behind her brother.

  Arlo’s face darkens, as serious as I’ve ever seen him. “We’re going to need Piper to look you over. Perhaps she can figure out what’s different.”

  What’s different?

  Fear grips my heart thinking too hard about that question, because I already know what changed. The color of his eyes when they flash. It’s almost exactly the same as a cluster of desert rose. As Borenite. As the powder I gave him to save his life.

  Before I can voice my concern, the sound of a hundred footfalls fills the hallway like thunder. We all whip around to catch a sea of red and gold hammering toward us.

  My heart sinks, knowing that this time what I’m seeing is real. Dropping my hand down, I thread my fingers through his for strength. He squeezes mine tightly, pressing our palms close until they kiss.

  Arlo straightens his shoulders and takes a step forward as a force of around a hundred halts in front of us.

  An older woman, long wavy hair the color of the desert steps forward, her sharp purplish-blue eyes lined with wrinkles in the outer corners and a pair of frown lines visible as she tightens her lips. She wears the Varshan uniform like it’s a second skin, the merlot robe tucked into a strange plate of linked golden metal over her chest, stopping just before her mid-thigh. A thick dark yellow wrap, much like the one Arlo had over his face earlier rests around each of the soldiers’ necks, and their baggy dark pants are tucked into high gray boots.

  The woman’s shrewd eyes pick over Arlo before flicking to take in the evidence of the bloody battle behind him. Her gaze lingers first on Marin, then Rayce, and finally lands on me.

  Her presence reminds me of the emperor, the way she moves precise and fluid. She thumps the butt of a long spear down on the ground and turns back to Arlo.

  “Did you complete your portion of the mission?” The woman’s clipped words have the lyrical quality of Varshan speech to them, but they offer no room for debate.

  Beside me, Marin gasps hearing her speak. I turn to see her eyes widen and she shakes her head.

  “Yes, the emperor has been slain,” Arlo responds.

  “Then you’ll introduce us to the princess,” the woman says.

  Arlo looks over his shoulder, casting an apologetic glance at Marin. She continues to shake her head, ignoring whatever it is her brother tries to tell her. Finally, his eyes slide to my face, the usual laughter nowhere to be found. He scratches his goatee and clears his throat.

  “Rose, could you come here?”

  Suddenly feeling very self-conscious in nothing but my under robe, I turn from Arlo, searching Rayce’s face, trying to muster the last of my courage to move. He still seems broken, barely holding up his own weight, but when he feels my gaze on him, he squeezes my hand.

  “It’s all right.” His words are just a whisper against my skin. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  The need to tell him that he has disappeared from my side more times than I can count these past few days bubbles up on my lips, but I keep it lodged in my throat. Worry fills me, especially knowing I’m the one that potentially broke him, but I push that down and let go of his hand, stepping up beside Arlo.

  The woman in front studies me as intently as Piper did the first time I met her, her fingers flexing on her spear. Her lined face and tanned skin, a shade darker than mine, don’t give away the results of her study.

  “Rose, I’d like you to meet Darra Shing, Captain of the Varshan army…” Arlo says.

  His words twist my gut. My secret is out. Both he and Marin now know who I am, that my heritage puts me in direct succession to the Varshan throne. So why would he be introducing me to people that could potentially end my life for my claim to it? I’m so involved in my own thoughts, I almost don’t hear the rest of what Arlo says.

  “And she is also my mother.”

  Marin’s story about her parents dying on the sea comes back to me, and suddenly her strange reaction makes perfect sense. She’s seeing a ghost.

  “Mother, may I introduce you to Arianna Vasile, princess of the Zaina Desert and rightful heir to the Varshan throne.”

  Silence hangs heavily in the air as I turn my widened eyes toward Arlo. He doesn’t seem surprised by any of this. He also won’t meet my gaze. I’d thought we were a team, especially after what we went through with the Gardener. But clearly, he was keeping many more secrets than just mine.

  “This is the princess, then,” Darra says, bringing my attention back to her. She shifts her weight toward her spear, her eyes seeming to dig past my surface to the little places I like to hide. “She isn’t what I was expecting…skinnier for sure, and she holds herself small like a Delmarion, not a very wide and proud stance, but she’ll have to do.”

  Before I can protest, Arlo’s mother turns on her foot and slams the butt of her spear down on the polished wood twice. Every single soldier behind her falls to their right knee, an army of spears where there were once heads. They all lower their gazes, looking to the floor in the deepest respect one Varshan can give another.

  Darra also takes to her knee, but she does not avert her gaze. “Your Highness, my humble army and I have traveled across the deserts to bring you home. Until the time you agree, we are under your command and will assist you in whatever you require.”

  “This is what I was working on,” Arlo says, turning and dropping to his knee as well. “With permission from the shogun and now emperor of Delmar, I wanted to meet with my mother, who I have been in contact with, and secure you an army so that with our combined forces, we could take control of Delmar and win this war.”

  “Now that this task is complete,” Darra says, “we will remain here until we can launch an attack on the Varshan government and usurp the traitor king from his throne. A proper Vasile will rule Varsha again. It’s what the people want and what we have put our lives on the line to accomplish.”

  I look around at the sea of people kneeling before me and want to scream at them to stand. My heart pounds in my chest, threatening to break free at the thought of having to lead anyone, until my gaze meets Rayce’s. Though he can barely stand on his own, his eyes grant me whatever strength he has left.

  “You can do this, Arianna,” he says. “I’ve always believed in you, from the moment I saw you drop from the ceiling of that tent. If there’s anyone who can unite the two kingdoms, it’s you and me. Just like your father wished for all those years ago and Oren wished for when you introduced yourself. Just like I wish for right now. Help me build this new world. Stand beside me, for we are always safest when we are together.”

  My sisters believed in me, said they would follow me into whatever danger I faced and I was able to make it to Rayce in time, to get the emperor to lay down his weapon and spare hundreds of lives in that battle. My stomach flutters at his words, at what he implies when he talks about my father’s wishes. If they had come true so many years ago, we would have already been husband and wife, would have already united the kingdoms.

  If we can do it together then perhaps…

  Heat rushes to my cheeks the longer I remain under his intense stare, so I turn back around to the Varshan army who waits for me to speak.

  “I’m not sure I’m the woman you set out to find,” I say quietly. “I’m not even sure I can be her. My life as the Varshan princess was a long time ago. But I do know one thing and that is the only way we will succeed is by working together.” My voice trembles on the last words as I try to put force behind my words. I take a step forward and wrap my hand above hers on her spear. “We’ll rebuild Delmar and then take back my throne for my father. But I cannot complete this task alone. We will do it together.”

  Chapter Thirty

  The past week has been a blur as a million things changed seamlessly like one season to the next. M
ost of the rebellion moved into the palace, making it their new permanent residence, and Rayce has been so busy trying to coordinate everything that he’s given himself no time to get better.

  He wears the title of emperor, but hasn’t yet been anointed and continues to claim he won’t take the crown unless the people agree. There has been very little in the way of resistance against this swift change now that his uncle is out of the picture. A few small uprisings, several packs of soldiers unwilling to bend the knee, some of the upper class rebelling, but nothing we haven’t been able to quell quickly through tempered words. The ease with which things have returned to relative normalcy worries me.

  Calla and Lily walk beside me down one of the long palace hallways. Much like at the Zareeni base, all of these halls look the same, except there, the people I’m with actually know where they are going. Here, they look to me to lead them through the maze of grand matching halls as if I’ve walked them my entire life instead of only a couple of days before the rebellion arrived.

  Marin walks slightly behind us next to Clover, face toward the ground. It has become almost a permanent position for her since we found out that her mother is alive, and not only did Arlo know about it, but he had been keeping that knowledge from her. She and Arlo haven’t spoken much, and I haven’t tried to push the subject with her yet. She spends most of her time trying to avoid the places he’ll be, and he has become very familiar with all the nooks in the palace where she hides herself.

  It’s clear he feels bad, but that doesn’t lessen the betrayal.

  “And Rayce sent more people back to try to find him?” Calla asks, adjusting her arm in the sling.

  Her voice pulls me from my present thoughts and I look up blankly.

  Lily must notice the confusion on my face. “The Gardener.”

  “Yes, Rayce sent people to search the base, but he was nowhere to be found.” This knowledge slides down my back like a cold draft, sending goose bumps down my arm. I had a hard time sleeping even when I knew exactly where he was. Now that he could be anywhere, the need to constantly look over my shoulder grows stronger daily. “He skittered off somewhere like a cockroach.”