by Alex Aguilar
“I was not fit to be a Lord Regent, that much I admit,” Darryk Clark went on confidently. “But, make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen… I am one hell of a knight commander… I’ve fought Aharians, orcs, pirates, sea nymphs, you name it… And you?” he paused for a delicate chuckle. “You don’t scare me… Not now, not ever…”
The mob watched with awe as Darryk wiped his blade with a handkerchief and slid it back into its sheath. Then, with a forced sigh, Darryk turned towards the frail figure of the mad preacher. For a moment, he felt he was getting carried away by the act. But if it was to help his reputation as the city’s new knight commander, he figured it worth it to act on his impulses.
“Throw him in the dungeon,” Darryk said to Hektor. “Then throw the key into the creek. He loves the gods so much? He may spend the rest of his life praying to them in solitude…”
And so, the guards dragged the sobbing preacher away. Darryk ordered the rest of the guards to retreat, and the mob began to disperse one by one.
Once it was all over, Lady Brunylda Clark retreated to her chambers, seeing as her flask was now lying on the carpet empty of any liqueur. She was shivering and her stunned face was empty of any emotion. For a moment, she had to pinch herself to know it hadn’t all been a dream. And when she didn’t wake up, her heart began racing…
What in all hells have you done, boy?
Her eyes were glistening, but there was no way she would ever cry. She hadn’t cried since she was 13 and she was damn sure she wouldn’t start now. But the sensation remained there, deep in her pounding chest, so powerful it was overwhelming.
And so it was that, as fate would have it, Lady Brunylda Clark became the first Lady Regent in the history of Gravenstone.
* * *
Magdalena of Val Havyn had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be a princess. Her skin felt cold and strange without the layer of dirt and sweat over it. Her hands were now clean, even underneath her fingernails, and her hair smelled like roses. She looked like herself again, yet she felt foreign and out of place in that green velvet dress.
Father always did say green was my color, she thought, and it nearly brought her to tears. Made me look so much like mother, he’d say.
An emerald necklace hung around her neck and she had two mismatching rings on each hand, one of them silver and the other gold. She sat in a clean chamber with walls made of black stone and sophisticated yet mismatching furniture that looked like it may have been stolen from various different castles and fortresses.
Valleria was there with her hands unchained, a rare instance considering her background as a sellsword, but there was no chance of escaping with the doors locked tight and the chamber being a hundred feet high above the city. The woman brushed Magdalena’s tangled hair as she had been ordered to do. Meanwhile a gnome woman with cluttered makeup around her eyes and lips worked silently on the princess’s nails, a smooth ivory color, one that complimented Magdalena’s fair skin and blonde hair.
“Why in hells they thought I was fit to do this baffles me,” Valleria scoffed, pulling viciously on the blonde knots with an old brush.
“They didn’t,” Magdalena admitted. “I was the one who asked for you.”
“Me?” she asked. “No offense, but do I look like a bloody handmaiden?”
“No, you look like a friend.”
The brushing stopped briefly. Valleria seemed somewhat thrown aback, as if no one had ever called her a ‘friend’ before. She sighed despairingly and glanced out the balcony window. “What’s the point of it all?” she asked. “Why this? What does he get out of it?”
“I know just as much as you,” Magdalena shrugged her shoulders lightly.
Valleria looked down at the gnome woman, who appeared to be fully dedicated to painting the nails with great precision. “You there,” Valleria called, but the gnome woman did not acknowledge her at all. Valleria may as well have been a ghost. “Hey!” she snapped her fingers to get the gnome’s attention. “I’m talkin’ to you, woman. You there?”
The gnome finished Magdalena’s last nail and looked up…
So eerie, she looked, her face empty of any sentiment.
Lifeless, almost, as if she was caught in some form of trance.
“The good lord will set us free,” she muttered. “All that is needed is bait…”
With that, the gnome woman walked away, taking with her the nail polish and a tray of empty goblets. Valleria and Magdalena locked eyes briefly, and the sellsword could see the fear in the princess’s eyes.
“I didn’t like the sound of that,” said Magdalena.
Valleria sighed again. “How in all hells did I end up in this fucking place?”
A key rattled suddenly and the door on the other end of the chamber opened. Hauzer and Jyor walked in, and Magdalena rose to her feet instantly out of precaution.
“Take the woman back to the dungeons. Baronkroft will be ‘ere soon.”
“Why do I have to take ‘er?” Jyor nagged.
“’Cause he asked me person’ly to look after the princess.”
Jyor growled and cuffed Valleria’s wrists again. They glanced briefly at one another, Valleria’s stare firm and expressionless while Jyor’s was relentless and uncouth.
“How’s the face?” he asked with a grin.
“How’re the fingers?”
His grin faded just as fast as it had come…
“Behave, lad,” Hauzer said from afar. “We won’t be doin’ this for much longer after today.”
With a vicious shove, the elf took Valleria away. Magdalena would have been concerned for the sellsword’s safety, had Valleria not proven to her how capable she was of defending herself even without a weapon.
Magdalena and Hauzer were left alone in the chamber, and the young princess took the opportunity to observe him. He no longer carried the grimace he often did. He looked exhausted, in fact, as if he hadn’t slept properly in days. A part of him even seemed troubled, in a way.
Magdalena brushed a few stray hairs from her face and bit her lip so as to suppress the shivering. Now’s your chance, she thought. Say something to him…
“What’s all of this for, exactly?”
Hauzer looked at her as if he’d somehow forgotten she had a tongue. His red beard was so thick that it was hard to read his lips when he spoke, as if it was the red bush doing the talking rather than the man. “I ain’t supposed to talk to ye…”
Of course not… But you don’t strike me as the obedient kind…
“I won’t say anything,” she promised him.
He closed his eyes and grumbled something incoherently under his breath. It killed the princess not to know and it killed him not to be able to tell her, she could see. “Ye’ll be fine,” he said brusquely, and instantly Magdalena felt her neck and shoulders loosen a bit. “Baronkroft doesn’t care about ye, he only wants his army. Ye do what he says ‘n’ he’ll let ye keep yer head.”
Oh, she pondered cynically. Just do what he says? Is that all? Well, shit…
“Why does he need me to get an ar-”
“Don’t push yer luck, girl,” Hauzer snapped. “I’ve said enough already.”
Magdalena’s mind became riddled with questions. And with the questions came the dread and the somber memories of a home that she may never have a chance to revisit. Her father, her beloved Val Havyn, her gardens, even her handmaiden Brie, as much as she’d often bicker with her. She missed all of it.
So distant, it felt, the life she had… Even after a few weeks, she felt she’d been held captive an eternity. Sleeping among dirt and vomit, starving day and night, all the while not knowing why she had been taken to begin with. She had no friends other than Thomlin and Valleria, and even they were mere acquaintances, the only shreds of joy she could find in that wretched place.
It was a mystery to her, all of it. From the forgotten ruins to the soldiers and prisoners inhabiting it. The prisoners were all humans, and from what she’d seen they all hailed from s
omewhere within Gravenstone. The soldiers and servants, on the other hand, were a diverse bunch; there were orcs, elves, gnomes, and humans of every class.
Then there was Hauzer, the man that had kept guard over her since she was taken and whose accent was most definitely Halghardian. What kind of man would leave Gravenstone to join a foreign force and attack his own homeland? For what purpose?
Patience, Magdalena, she told herself. Today’s the day your questions will be answered.
The chamber doors creaked open again, and the princess felt her body grow suddenly cold. The monster of a man that walked in was very familiar; she remembered him as the last face she saw before passing out in Val Havyn, just outside the palace grounds. Those massive hands were the very same that blocked the air from entering her lungs, and she could never forget that dreadful mask or those ghostlike eyes…
The Butcher posted himself against the brick wall, making way for the incoming figure behind him. Magdalena felt her heart skip a beat. Her breathing quickened and her eyes stopped blinking.
He’s here…
It began with a shadow; the light from the torches exposed him before the Lord even stepped foot inside the chamber. The long-haired shadow approached leisurely from the corridor, calm and serene, as if he had all the time in the world to spare. His boots clanked against the brick floor, one after another like the beating of a slow drum.
And then she saw him, a tall and slender man dressed entirely in black. He had a deathly grin on his lips and his sunken eyes conveyed an eerie appetite for power. His black facial hair was trimmed neatly and reacted sharply against his pale skin. He wore several rings made of silver that glistened along with the silver thorns embroidered on the wrists and hems of his black velvet overcoat. The largest ring of them all was on his right hand, covering his index finger entirely like an embellished silver sleeve; the outline of a thorny vine wrapped around the finger while the tip of it had been molded into the shape of a sharp talon.
When he locked eyes with Magdalena his grin widened, splitting his face in half. “Your majesty!” he said nonchalantly, as if greeting an old friend. He paced towards her and she felt a sudden cold rush in her spine, despite the fact that she was standing right next to the fireplace. “By the gods, you look stunning… Absolutely stunning… An image fit for royalty, I’ll dare say…”
He stopped a few strides away from her and glanced back at the Butcher.
“Thank you, my dear Harrok. You know where to go, should I need you.”
The Butcher nodded and locked the doors behind him, and then Baronkroft shifted his attention back towards the silent princess.
“He sure knows how to grasp the attention in the room, doesn’t he?” he asked with a snicker. He approached Magdalena again, and with every step he took the princess could feel the room grow colder somehow, as if he was bringing with him an icy aura that was invisible to her eyes.
Stop shivering, damn you. Stop it now!
“You must be wondering why I’ve summoned you this evening, your majesty,” the lord said, pacing back and forth near the fireplace. She could smell his perfume, a strange blend of incense and something else, something hot and pungent like blood.
She kept her words to herself and he, in return, seemed almost pleased by her stunned silence. He came to a halt right in front of her, but he wouldn’t look her in the eyes just yet; instead he observed the rest of her, a look of hunger and greed in his eerie gaze, as if she were a piece of treasure he had earned for himself.
“This is a significant day for us both,” he brushed his hand gently through her soft yellow hair. It sickened her, and he could tell that it did. Yet he kept doing it, as if he were petting an animal rather than a person. “When the evening’s over, your majesty, everything will have changed… For you, for me, for all of us…”
Magdalena said nothing still, she hardly even moved. She simply stood there, attentive of his every move. Even the slightest twitch could potentially reveal something useful.
“So pay close attention to what I’m about to say,” he let go of her hair for a moment, his grin vanishing. “I have never been fond of repeating myself, I must warn you, so I will only say this once. Your job will be quite simple… You are to stand there and not speak a single word… It shouldn’t be too difficult. You’ve done it all your life, I’m sure. The only difference tonight is that your very fate will depend on it.”
Her brows lowered slightly. What sort of game are you playing?
In her life, she had known many men that were hungry for power. They were as ordinary to her as a beggar was ordinary to a tavern server. But this man… His hunger was nearly terrifying. He seemed like the type of man her father would often warn her about when it came to world politics, the type of man who would stop at nothing until his every need was met, regardless of the casualties.
“Do not fear me, your grace,” Baronkroft raised his hand again, this time grazing her cheek with his right index finger, the cold silver sleeve giving her bumps in her skin. “Regardless of what you may have heard, I assure you that I am a merciful man at heart. Should you cooperate with me, I can be a most generous friend.”
Her eyes glistened as if she was on the verge of tears. And when he noticed them, he grinned even more; little did he know Magdalena was grinning right back on the inside. She’d learned to hold back her blinking at the age of 5 so as to dampen her eyes, making it seem like the tears would come at any moment. She found it fascinating what she could get away with by making people believe she was some sort of delicate defenseless creature, and she’d learned to use it to her advantage.
“However,” his grin faded. “Should you do anything to ruin this night for me…”
He paused there. This time, Magdalena felt strange and dizzy and lightheaded, as if he was somehow altering her mind through a stare. He took one final step closer.
“Well, let’s just say I’ve killed men that I once considered family simply for lying to me… Just imagine the things I would do to you…”
With that, he stepped away to serve himself a goblet of wine. Without his overwhelming scent, Magdalena felt she could breathe again. She couldn’t deny her fear, but she’d be damned if she was going to let him control her like he seemed to control everyone else.
“A word, Sergeant Hauzer?” Baronkroft beckoned him with a grin.
The red-bearded man walked over to the table and the lord whispered something into his ear. Magdalena was unable to hear a single word, but Hauzer’s twisted grimace was enough to startle her.
“S-Sir?” the red-bearded man asked confusedly.
Baronkroft took a sip from his goblet and gave Hauzer a cold stare. “Is there a problem?”
“Well, I...” Hauzer appeared troubled again, clearing his throat as he thought of an appropriate response. “Sir, I just don’t see the need to d-”
“Are you questioning me, Sergeant Hauzer?” Baronkroft looked frightening all of a sudden, not only in his glare but in the way he moved and spoke, cold and heartless like a vulture circling a near-death prey.
“No, sir… I beg your forgiveness, sir…”
“Good,” Baronkroft nodded. “Then do as you’re told, soldier… Unless you want to join the prisoners down in the dungeons…”
It was then that the lord left the room, a grin plastered on his face as if he was unstoppable. Magdalena could see the discomfort in Hauzer’s eyes, it was clearer than the crystal goblet Baronkroft left on the table.
The princess was taken to a chamber nearby and her hands were cuffed in chains again. It felt strange to be cleaned up and made to look elegant, only to be chained down like a prisoner all over again. And through the unease, she couldn’t resist her urge to pry.
“Did he tell you to do this?”
Hauzer groaned under his breath but gave her no answer. He picked up the chains and pulled her out towards the corridor.
“Where are we going…?”
His boots echoed loudly down the corridor a
s if he were a massive ogre, a heavy stomp compared to her soft footsteps, her feet sliding against the bottom of the oversized sandals she’d been given to wear.
“Hauzer…? Where are you tak-”
“Right ‘bout now would be the best time to shut yer mouth,” he said.
But she couldn’t. The unease was pricking at her chest like a thorn, and the fact that she knew Hauzer couldn’t harm her gave her at least a bit of unforeseen power.
“What did he say to you back there?”
“That ain’t yer concern…”
“Is it not? Well it sure seems lik-”
“For fuck’s sake, do ye want to keep yer life, girl?!” he came to a halt, hissing at her soft enough so as to not be overheard by the ears behind the walls.
“Y-Yes, of course…”
“Then shut yer mouth ‘n’ so as I say.”
Magdalena could no longer fight the shivering in her lip. For a moment it was hard for her to read the man’s intentions. He seemed far less cruel than before, if he ever truly was. Perhaps it was a façade all along. Or perhaps he was simply angry at the world. But being angry didn’t make you cruel, Magdalena knew. Her own father was the angriest man she had ever known.
“What did he say?” she asked him again, her eyes on the verge of tears, real ones this time. “I must know…”
Hauzer sighed again, and his desperation was undeniable. He unsheathed a sharp curved knife from his belt all of a sudden and gripped it as he continued to drag her down the dark corridor.
“I’m sorry, yer majesty,” he said.
When she inadvertently slowed her pace, he gave the chains a good yank.
He hardly looked back at her, as if it pained him to.
“Sorry for what?” she bit her lip again.
“For what I’m about to do…”
* * *
The room was dimly lit with an array of candles and a torch at every corner. Nearly two dozen men sat around the long dining room table, which was empty of any food but replete with more wine than the men could drink.