Justified (#2 Divided Destiny)

by Taitrina Falcon

  The sun had just fully crested the horizon when they reached the border. For a change, they could hear no signs of battle. Perhaps both sides were taking the day off to lick their wounds, or maybe they hadn’t yet clashed today. It was still early, and the forces in this world didn’t fight at night.

  When they had approached the village the last time, it had been from the opposite direction. There were many villages along the border, and as they got closer, Leo started to deny what he was seeing. They had gotten the wrong village, that was all; they weren’t in the right place.

  The landscape looked familiar—the winding road leading down into the town, with the surrounding grasslands—but they could have been wrong. The villages were all built off similar sort of plans. They had passed through many similar-looking ones, and they all started to blend together after a while.

  However, no matter how many arguments he made, the closer they got, the harder it was to live in denial. The structure of the village remained basically intact. There was the well in the center of the marketplace, there was the tavern where they had eaten, and all the surrounding homes which encircled everything. Not all of them were in ruins.

  Just most of them.

  Nick slipped down from his horse, his jaw clenched and his eyes shining more with anger than sadness. Though there was certainly grief there, too. Leo wondered if Nick felt responsible. He himself certainly felt the heavy weight of failure. They had given these people false hope. The villagers had believed in their ‘saviors,’ and nothing the three marines, or Mathis, had said had altered their conviction. The marines had been here to save the village once, but they hadn’t been here the second time.

  The village had paid the ultimate price for their misguided faith. The three marines left their horses at the outskirts of the village and continued on foot. Whatever had happened here, it had been at least several days ago, for some buildings had been burned, and they were no longer smoking. The charred remains were all that was left.

  Don kicked at a burned log, and it burst into a cloud of ash. He was unable to make light of the tragedy around them, so was characteristically silent. Leo always knew things were bad when Don didn’t manage to crack a joke or make a quip. It was a morbid way to deal with death, but the oppressive feeling of failure and impending doom was much worse.

  Leo didn’t know whether it had been the forces of Gatlan or Sintiya that had caused this devastation; likely it had been a repeat of last time and a clash between them both. He gazed around the destroyed village; there were no bodies to be seen, but over in the corner there was a pool of dark blood which the elements had yet to wash away.

  His eyes caught a piece of fluttering fabric caught between two loose boards. Leo wearily moved over and picked it up. It was red and torn from a larger garment, mostly likely a Gatlan tabard. He sighed heavily and let the wind carry it away. Leo closed his eyes. It wasn’t difficult to picture the scene.

  The terrified villagers running for their lives and being cut down without reason by knights high on bloodlust, hacking and slashing at everything in sight, whether it was the enemy or a trapped screaming woman. He’d already seen it, only this second time the marines hadn’t been there to save them.

  It hadn’t felt like much of a victory at the time. Leo had been concerned that something like this would happen, but he had never wanted to be proven right. He had tried to remember it as a victory, the cheers of the villagers who hadn’t watched their lives be destroyed. They had run with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and they had been so grateful that they hadn’t lost everything after all.

  This felt ominous. Had they done anything right since arriving in this world? Had they achieved anything since the aliens invaded Earth? Leo ghosted around the village. His heart hammered in his chest, and he could just hear a roaring in his ears. He felt disconnected, more zombie than man, as he came across a row of freshly dug graves.

  Clearly there had been some survivors, and they had returned to bury their dead. Maybe they had managed to salvage something before they had left, before they had become refugees in their own kingdom. Perhaps they had family in another village. Mathis had said that their people were generous, but times were hard. Hopefully they would be okay.

  “Well, we’re not going to be able to trade for supplies,” Don commented in a strained tone.

  Nick snorted. “This is our fault.”

  “It’s not our fault,” Leo disagreed hollowly, although he did feel guilty and ashamed.

  They should have tried harder; they should have done more. These people were innocent. They could have been saved, there was no need for them to have died. Their deaths were senseless and very preventable. If they hadn’t intervened in the first place, if the village had been destroyed the first time Gatlan and Sintiya had clashed here, then there would have been far fewer deaths.

  Now the village was destroyed and deserted. Exactly as it would have been if they had done nothing. It was very demoralizing.

  “We shouldn’t have come back. It would have been better not to know,” Don pointed out. “We should get going, there’s nothing we can do here.”

  “Agreed.” Leo nodded.

  As a team, they turned their back on the village and remounted their horses. The sun was warm against Leo’s skin, a cool breeze in the air. It was a perfect day, for such a dark sight. Another failure to add to the list. Would Earth be next?

  *****

  Mathis felt a great swell of pride that he, over all the other knights, had been entrusted with this particular quest. Investigating a security breach was a serious and delicate affair. Given that three kingdoms were involved, the diplomatic ramifications were immense. There hadn’t been such a gathering of the kingdoms for such serious matters in recent memory. They tended to gather for balls and discuss concerns in small private meetings.

  This summit had been arranged quickly, using magic for transport, an option that wasn’t usually available, making travel a time-consuming and odious task. Mathis had a tremendous amount of respect for Cyrus, the Kaslea sorcerer, and he tried to emulate his sovereign’s open-minded attitude towards magic. However, he couldn’t deny that it made him slightly uncomfortable.

  How could a simple man such as himself, protected by armor and wielding steel, protect the kingdom and his prince from something he didn’t understand? He knew Prince Edmund better than most. Mathis’s mentor had been a senior knight assigned to the castle. One of his common duties during his time as a squire had been watching over the child prince.

  Now that small child, who had run laughing all over the castle, had grown to be a grim-faced young man, the ruler of his kingdom at a time when Kaslea faced problems it had never endured before. King Rufus had been a wise ruler, but the largest tribulation of his reign had been the drought ten summers previous, which had lost a large portion of their harvest.

  Prince Edmund, king in all but name, faced war, sabotage, and enemies all around. The world had been peaceful for as long as Mathis could remember. It was only in recent years that discord had crept in, and it was not a welcome change. It was like a shadow hanging over the land, and while he was not given to fanciful premonitions, he couldn’t shake the dark feeling that matters would worsen before they improved.

  There were many strangers at the castle for the summit. Lord Greenford had brought a delegation not just of knights, but a personal retinue to serve him. Queen Eleanor had brought only a cadre of knights, opting instead to avail herself of the servants already working in Prince Edmund’s palace.

  The knights were being housed in the barracks. There were too many for the visiting quarters, so some Kaslea knights had been moved elsewhere to free up another room for the visitors. Mathis decided to begin his investigation there. Nobody knew the solemn duty he had been charged with, so they would not see him as anything other than a Kaslea knight. It was possible he may glean useful information from just listening to their conversations.

  Mathis stepped inside the open
door. Even with the door propped open, the summer heat was warming the air inside the barracks to uncomfortable levels. It tasted stale and sweaty, of too many bodies confined in such a small space. However, he caught the scent of fresh straw for the beds and knew that they were showing decent hospitality towards their guests.

  He peeked his head around the door into the visiting quarters, which the Sintiya knights had taken for their own. There were four knights currently in residence, including the one who had been injured the night before. They were stripped down to their breeches and sleeping, ready to return to duty and relieve their comrades when dusk fell.

  In the other room, the Northern Kingdoms knights could be heard before they were seen. They too had stripped down to their padded breeches, in deference to the heat, their armor propped up against the walls. They were playing cards and drinking mead the castle kitchen had no doubt supplied. It was a ribald display.

  Mathis didn’t let his reaction show, but on a posting such as this, he would have considered himself a representative of his kingdom, and would never have behaved as such. However, it wasn’t for him to judge, and it could work out better for him anyway, if the mead loosened their tongues.

  “Afternoon, gentlemen,” Mathis greeted. “Is this a closed game?”

  “Do you have the coin?” one of the Northern Kingdoms knights asked boldly.

  “Alas, not on me.” Mathis gestured to his attire.

  He was in his armor, and the only item he was carrying was his sword, attached as usual to his hip. Truthfully, he was surprised they were playing for coin amongst themselves; it was not something he would do among his friends and comrades. However, now that he had stepped further into the room, he could see small piles of bronze coins. He raised an eyebrow; there was probably a month’s worth of pay on the table.

  “No coin, no game,” the Northern Kingdoms knight told him, taking a deep pull from his flagon of mead. He slammed it back down onto the table. “Another round!” he roared.

  Mathis stepped back out of the room. With their volume, he could hear them clearly enough from the corridor. He stood there, as if he was on sentry duty, for nearly two hours, but nothing of Sintiya passed the knights’ lips. They spoke of the card game, with jeers and taunts flying between the winners and the losers. They also talked about the liquor they had enjoyed in the past, thoroughly renouncing the mead they were drinking even as they called for more of it.

  Their crass comments about women, and the explicit jokes, were nothing that Mathis hadn’t heard before, but he considered himself a man of honor and found them distasteful. It was hard to listen without objecting to their disrespectful behavior. Mathis frowned in concern. If they had secret orders from their lord, these knights were not speaking of it amongst themselves this afternoon.

  He would need to find another avenue of investigation.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The summit meetings took place in a small room, an antechamber of sorts, in the same wing of the castle as the library. It was in the corner of the palace and had windows on two sides, something Eleanor found very pleasant. She was unsure what the room was generally used for; it appeared to have been empty before today. The dining table they had been seated around had been brought from the family quarters. She had sat on one side, Lord Greenford on the other, with Prince Edmund at the head desperately trying to mediate.

  “Lord Greenford, we have been talking all morning. This is the third day we have been around this table, and yet I believe in all that time, you have said nothing of note,” Eleanor said, after Lord Greenford’s most recent five-minute speech. “You haven’t addressed the slaughter of my knights on our shared border, or the rumors of your kingdoms’ economic problems.”

  “That’s because we know nothing about the unfortunate death of your knights, and the Northern Kingdoms have no economic problems,” Lord Greenford stated firmly. He shrugged. “I see no point in discussing something of so little relevance.”

  Eleanor rose to her feet and glared at him. “It is of great relevance to me. It is also why we are here.”

  “Why you are here, perhaps,” Lord Greenford sniffed. “I would much rather discuss something of use, like altering the terms of our trade deal.”

  “Why don’t we break for the midday meal?” Prince Edmund suggested soothingly, eyes flicking between Eleanor and Lord Greenford.

  “I am willing to discuss reparations,” Eleanor offered. She inclined her head towards Prince Edmund and favored him with a smile. “After we have partaken of the repast, of course.”

  “There will be no reparations,” Lord Greenford boomed, standing up, his eyes flashing. “I am done listening to you besmirch my kingdom. We are not at fault.”

  “After the meal,” Prince Edmund pleaded, holding up his hands, gesturing for Lord Greenford to stop and calm down.

  Eleanor said nothing. She just turned on her heel and left the small room, the skirt of her gown swishing behind her. This was the second time Prince Edmund had tried to mediate in a dispute for Sintiya. He had tried the night of his engagement ball, when Eleanor had briefly spoken with King Oswald in the prince’s library. That had gone about as well as this morning had. Acting as the mediator was a role Prince Edmund was poorly suited for, given his youth and inexperience.

  The windows in the summit room were open, but Eleanor still walked the halls until she found a door to the outside. It led to a small balcony that overlooked the side of the estate. The palace was surrounded by the town of Termont on three sides. It had originally only been one, as the palace had faced the port. However, the town had grown and swallowed the palace, building around it.

  She couldn’t imagine how the Kaslea royalty managed; it surely couldn’t be secure. However, this side of the estate was open. There were grounds and a wall fencing off the palace area from the farmland beyond. Just to the right, Eleanor could see the twinkle of the sun reflecting off the waves as they crashed onto the shore.

  Eleanor shivered. She had spent her so-called honeymoon, with King Augustus, at Sintiya’s palace on the kingdom’s eastern shore. She had never seen the ocean before then, and had been enchanted by it. However, the ocean was now forever tainted by association. Those three weeks had been the longest of her life, and the salt in the air was a constant reminder.

  She took a deep breath and waited. Any moment now, there should be a scream as Yannick made another move. One more of her knights would give their life in her service today. A necessary sacrifice for the greater good. Eleanor twisted, hearing a noise behind her. Prince Edmund stepped out onto the balcony.

  “Do you mind if I join you?” he asked.

  “It is your palace,” Eleanor quipped.

  Prince Edmund nodded. “I’ve noticed you like your privacy. I didn’t wish to intrude.”

  Eleanor blinked, utterly surprised. She wasn’t sure what to say. Nobody had ever shown her courtesy like that before. She hadn’t believed that men were capable of such a complex thought process as to be able to observe an emotion in another and then modify their behavior based on that observation.

  “That’s very considerate of you,” Eleanor drawled.

  She shifted uncomfortably, and then thankfully the awkward encounter ended as the promised scream cut through the air. Edmund twisted around in alarm, and two of his knights appeared from their discreet positions to protect their sovereign.

  “Find out what’s going on now,” Prince Edmund demanded. He looked over at Eleanor. “Hopefully it will be nothing, a maid frightened by an animal, perhaps.”

  “Perhaps,” Eleanor murmured, allowing doubt to creep into her voice. She knew very well what had frightened the maid, and it wasn’t an animal.

  A knight hurried over. He bent his head in respect. “Your Majesty, Queen Eleanor, there’s been a death.”

  “A death?” Prince Edmund exclaimed. “Who?”

  “One of Queen Eleanor’s knights, Your Majesty.” The knight shot Eleanor a wary look. “The maid found him dead in h
er chambers. The room is in great disarray.”

  “I wish to see this at once,” Eleanor demanded imperiously. “It appears that my delegation has been attacked yet again, while under your protection.” Prince Edmund took in a deep breath, but Eleanor held up her hand to stop him from speaking. “I am not blaming you for this tragedy, my knights are also at fault for allowing themselves to be beaten. However, I do think you should consider the company you keep, and those you call friends, a little more carefully.”

  Eleanor swept away. Stunned, Prince Edmund stared after her, his jaw dropped for a moment before he collected himself and hurried after her. Together, the two sovereigns walked through the palace, to the quarters assigned to Eleanor.

  “You are suggesting the Northern Kingdoms are responsible?” Prince Edmund whispered.

  He looked stricken and Eleanor let her features soften, shrugging lightly. “I do not see who else could be behind these attacks. Presumably your security would be aware if there was a Gatlan infiltrator among us. There are two other kingdoms represented here, and I trust you.”

  That was quite the statement, but trust begot trust. She was sure such a declaration would go over well with the young prince. The words felt odd on her tongue, but they were easy enough to say, given she was behind the incidents herself. Yannick was taking care of the actual attacks. She might have magic, but that magic was known, so she needed to have a cast iron alibi whenever anything happened. Yannick had agreed to help.

  Prince Edmund blinked at her declaration, before breaking out into a soft smile. “It seems events are determined to challenge our preconceptions. Thank you for your trust, I just wish I was worthy of it. This is, after all, the second such incident.”

  “It seems somebody is determined to make fools of us all,” Eleanor noted.