by Alex Aguilar
The man felt a drop of sweat run down his temple as he slowly sunk back down into his chair.
“That’s it, sir… Besides, it would be a real shame to scar such a beautiful thing,” he brushed his forefinger, the one with the silver ring on it, against Magdalena’s cheek. “What kind of man would I be if I allowed any harm to befall her?”
He took a moment to observe the room. He had them all on the edge of their seats and it appeared to please him. He let out a loud chuckle once again and let his arms hang loose all of a sudden, as if he was only bantering with old friends.
“Look at you all!” he said. “You all look as if you’ve seen a ghost… It’s rather funny, the way power changes you, isn’t it? The way it makes you feel unstoppable, able to vanquish any obstacle…? But, with time, you forget how small you truly are… How easily your life can be taken by a blade to the neck.”
Suddenly, he swung his arm to the right… Magdalena fought the urge to yelp as the tip of Baronkroft’s dagger pressed against the tender skin below her chin…
The men in the room nearly leapt from their seats from the fright.
“I have eyes and ears in many places, gentlemen,” Baronkroft glared at them all as he kept the dagger there for everyone to see. “One raven is all it would take… I could cut her majesty’s pretty little throat and send a message to every single city and village in Gravenstone and tell them that you, Sir Gerhard Vandelour, killed her mercilessly by order of King Ulrik.”
“You wouldn’t!” shouted Sir Vandelour’s second-in-command.
“Wouldn’t I?”
“You’re a nobody! They’d never believe you!”
“Then I’ll send her head… Think they’d believe me then?”
“You would start a war between two countries for your own benefit?! You would sacrifice thousands of innocent lives f-”
“And how many lives have been lost under King Ulrik’s reign?” Baronkroft asked defiantly. “And for what purpose, may I ask, if not his own?” He removed the dagger from Magdalena’s neck and sunk it into the wooden table. By then, the lord was red-faced and shivering with fury. He looked like a raging madman who had just smoked three pipes of red spindle and was heading off into a battle.
“Don’t test my patience, gentlemen,” he said. “Or, by the gods, I’l-”
“You’ll do what?!” Sir Vandelour had suddenly heard enough. “Kill us, will you?”
“Now, where would be the fun in that?” Baronkroft remarked, chuckling eerily. “No, Sir Vandelour, I wouldn’t kill you… I would break you… Bit by bit, I would make certain that you learn what it truly feels to be nothing. Some of you will never see the light of day again, I’ll make certain of it. And you Sir Vandelour, I would keep nearby. I would kill her majesty in front of you and let you watch me as I write a letter naming you her killer. I would make you watch as your beloved kingdom goes to war with Gravenstone. You’ll be branded a traitor… Your name will become a curse to people’s ears… Your children and their children will spend their entire lives looking over their shoulder…”
He paused there and pulled the dagger out from the wooden table. He held it up delicately and stared at it as if it were treasure. “Do I have your attention now, gentlemen?” he asked. “Or shall I show you just how rash I can be when you fuck with me…?”
There was a long uncomfortable silence, during which the hidden dagger nearly slipped from Sir Vandelour’s sweaty hands. An entire life he’d spent building his reputation, fighting barbarians, keeping the peace, fighting loyally for his king… And yet in the end, it all came down to a single man threatening him inside of a locked room… The knight commander simply couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t at least make an attempt to fight.
“Well,” Baronkroft straightened himself up and gave his neck a good crack. “Perhaps I’ll give you all some time to think on it…”
He turned to face the door. And it was in that brief moment, when his back was exposed, that Sir Vandelour saw his opportunity. The knight commander pushed his chair back and swung his arm… The dagger flew across the room heading right for the lord’s back. Magdalena was deathly near, and she could see that the lord was mildly grinning, as if he’d been expecting the attack.
Baronkroft turned back around with the speed of an elf, his right hand up in the air as if prepared to catch the blade…
But it did not touch him… It never even reached him…
Instead, the dagger slowed to a halt in mid-air, the sharp tip hardly reaching within an inch of his palm. It was as if the dagger was suddenly lighter than a feather, floating weightlessly at Baronkroft’s eye level.
The men around the table watched in shock, Sir Vandelour included. Most sorcerers in Qamroth were known to manipulate the elements. But even the most powerful of wind mages could not do what the lord was doing. This was dark magic.
“I’m impressed, knight commander,” Baronkroft muttered, rotating his wrist gently, his right forefinger manipulating the dagger’s movement, tenderly as if the dagger was floating in water. “I’ve heard of your deadly aim… I’ve only ever dreamed I could one day see it for myself…”
The dagger began to turn gently in the air, the sharp tip aiming in Sir Vandelour’s direction.
“It’s nice to see a man live up to his reputation…”
Baronkroft’s hand suddenly twitched and he hissed sharply as if he felt a sting running up his arm. The dagger flew across the room again, this time in the opposite direction, just as fast as it had been traveling before; it was as if the lord had grasped, manipulated, and stalled the dagger’s energy, and then released it all with one sudden jolt.
Sir Vandelour felt his heart race as he found that, once again, he could no longer move a single muscle in his body. He was stuck there like an unmoving target. But before the dagger sunk into his chest, one of his men, a rather young one, leapt from his seat and shouted, “Stop!”
The dagger came to a halt just an inch from Vandelour’s heart. Baronkroft’s eyes drifted eerily towards the interrupting young soldier, who looked rather inexperienced and frightened.
“We’ll do it!” the soldier said in a panic. “W-We’ll call the soldiers in and send for more… J-Just stop this, please…”
Baronkroft wanted to smile. He almost did, in fact, until a fierce pain shot up his arm and into his chest. His wrist suddenly fell and the dagger fell to the floor with it. And Sir Vandelour could once again feel the warmth crawling through his veins. Baronkroft turned his back to the men, hiding from their sight as he reached into his pocket and drew a handkerchief made of black silk.
Standing that way, Magdalena had a clear view of him. The lord’s nose had started to bleed and there was a soft hint of black among the red. He had also gone pale, much more pale than his usual state; he had gone from looking elegant to looking deathly ill within seconds.
Magdalena was stunned. She’d never seen such sorcery in her life. And she knew that neither had the rest of the men, for they were as startled as a bunch of children facing a ruthless beast.
Once Baronkroft wiped most of the blood away, he gave Hauzer a head nod. And without saying a word, the red-bearded sergeant dragged Magdalena away, back towards the corridor.
“Very well!” Baronkroft turned back towards the men, trying his best to regain his stance. “That settles it, then! I do thank you for your cooperation, mister…?”
The young soldier that had spoken up was suddenly startled, as if not used to having all the eyes in the room fixed on him. “Um… Vincent, sir… Vincent Soriano.”
It was a peculiar name, but Baronkroft reacted benevolently, as if the young man was an old friend of his. “My dear Harrok, would you be kind enough to escort young Mister Soriano to my personal chambers?”
Vincent froze with fear as the infamous Butcher of Haelvaara approached him and lifted him by the arm.
“As for the rest of you gentlemen!” Baronkroft took backwards steps towards the door after all of his part
y was out of the room. “I’m sure you must all be feeling a bit out of sorts… Perhaps a bit of time to consider things will do you some good, yes?”
Once he took the first step outside, the two goblins that were waiting by the doors slammed them shut and placed a steel bar over them. Instantly, Sir Vandelour and his men leapt from their seats and tried to find a way out. But there was no use. Baronkroft had chosen that room for a reason. The only way out was through those doors or out the balcony to a hundred foot drop.
“What has that boy done?!” Sir Vandelour asked with a vivid rage in his tone.
Meanwhile, outside the doors, Lord Yohan Baronkroft took a moment to catch his breath. He used his handkerchief to check for more blood, but his nose was now dry, as if nothing had ever happened. He grinned.
“Where are you taking me?” cried the young soldier named Vincent. “Sir? Sir?!”
“Thank you, my dear Harrok!” Baronkroft shouted, his voice echoing down the corridor. “Do see that the boy gets a meal!”
“Wait… please, take me back… No!!”
Aside from Baronkroft, the only ones left in the corridor were Magdalena and Hauzer, and they became startled when they saw the wicked grin on the lord’s face. His hands were shivering from the exhilaration, his teeth chattering as if the room was icy cold all of a sudden. He looked like a madman, like a peasant who that just stumbled upon a million yuhn, like a warlock that just discovered the secret to eternal youth. Sir Vandelour and his men were pounding against the doors behind him, but Baronkroft hardly seemed to care, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
“Well!” he laughed hysterically and brought his hands together with a clap. “That was quite an evening, wasn’t it?”
Magdalena was stunned beyond words, her face pale and ghostly all of a sudden.
“I don’t know about you lot, but a good night’s rest sounds rather lovely right about now, does it not?” Baronkroft asked.
Magdalena’s jaw dropped even further; she could hardly believe her eyes. The man had gone from intimidating to friendly in a manner that no sane man could ever possibly achieve, at least not convincingly.
“Retreat!” he said with a hand signal.
Hauzer dragged the princess away. She was already formulating in her mind the story she would tell Thomlin and Valleria and the rest of the prisoners, when Baronkroft’s voice stopped them suddenly.
“Whoa, stop right there, Sergeant Hauzer! Where do you think you’re going?”
Hauzer glanced back with a confused expression. “To the prison chambers, sir…”
Baronkroft chuckled as if bantering with a friend.
“Come on, Sergeant Hauzer… I said a good night’s rest, did I not?”
Hauzer raised a brow, and Magdalena was too mystified to speak a single word.
“Take her majesty to a proper bed tonight,” said Baronkroft. “It’s the least we could offer her.”
It was then that Magdalena knew that something definitely wasn’t right in Baronkroft’s mind. Whatever sorcery he had used was taking a toll on him. And, being the ingenious thing that she was, she instantly began thinking of ways that she could use it to her advantage.
“Oh, and by the way!” Baronkroft shouted from the other end of the corridor.
Hauzer came to a halt. Baronkroft was looking right at the princess, and Magdalena looked right back at him. The lord’s eerie grin was still there, and his demeanor was just as jarringly buoyant.
“You were astonishing back there, poppet!” he said, and then he walked off towards his chambers with a stroll so peaceful and confident, it was hard not to see how insane the man had turned in just a few minutes’ time.
Hauzer and Magdalena glanced at one another briefly.
“You heard ‘im,” Hauzer said. “Right this way, yer majesty.”
She followed him to a guest chamber that was not entirely clean but much more comfortable than the prisons. She was locked in there, of course. And when the princess sunk into the bed, it was as smooth and comfortable to her as cotton.
But she did not sleep that night… She couldn’t, not after what she had seen…
She lay there perfectly still for hours, her mind reeling with a thousand questions. There was only one thing she knew for certain. There was no use in waiting any longer. Baronkroft’s plan was in motion, and so she had to make sure she had a plan of her own. Waiting for a rescue was no longer an option.
For once, she could no longer sit and let her ideas flow within her idly.
For once, she had to act rather than wait to be called upon by her father.
For once, she had to take control and do something…
* * *
Adelina Huxley could not bring herself to sleep, as much as she tried.
It was a pleasantly warm night, not as humid as most spring days in recent years, and after several hours of lying wide-eyed in bed she decided to step outside for a moonlit walk around the palace gardens. She gave both of her sleeping children a gentle kiss on the forehead; they shared a bed with River, the infant orc that fate had placed in her family’s hands. Gods help us… what are we going to do with you?
So much had changed for them in the last few days.
One moment, Adelina and her children had a farm.
One moment, Evellyn had a father and a blacksmith shop.
And suddenly, it was all gone… Adelina could no longer brew tea in her kitchen the way she would often do when she had trouble sleeping; her kitchen was nothing but a pile of ash now. She could no longer daydream while gazing out her window, could no longer take in the greenery in the distance or smell the pure country air. Instead when she walked outside, there was nothing but a field of dirt and gravel, empty except for a few rows of training mannequins and racks of weaponry. It almost seemed as if fate had played some sort of cruel joke on the Huxleys.
The palace gardens were just a short walk from the guard barracks and, aside from her children, that was the only thing that brought Adelina any joy. Three nights in a row she couldn’t sleep, and three nights in a row she’d visited the gardens.
She liked the silence, the scents, the myriad of flowers swaying with the wind.
She liked the peace that it brought her, for peace had been so rare as of late.
But when she entered the gardens on this particular night, she realized she wasn’t the only one whose mind had been shaken by the evening’s plight. A woman in a beautiful teal gown was sitting there alone with a goblet in hand and a half-empty bottle of Roquefort liqueur on the table. Adelina’s feet trembled to a halt; she tried to retreat back into the shadows but the solemn woman locked eyes with her, and leaving felt suddenly rude and bad-mannered.
“Pardon me, m’lady,” she said. “I didn’t mean to intrude…”
“You didn’t,” Lady Brunylda replied, her face blank and her eyes gazing at nothing.
“M-My apologies… I’ll leave you in peace,” Adelina gave her a nervous bow.
“Wait…”
Adelina’s feet froze almost involuntarily.
The Lady Clark sighed tiresomely and bent her neck until it cracked. It became rather obvious that she may have been sitting there drinking for hours, based solely on her reddened eyes and the subtle slurring of her words. She sat up properly in her seat as if preparing for an important conference. “Huxley was your name, right?” she asked.
“Adelina, m’lady.”
“Right,” the Lady grunted. She had a slight moment of hesitation, a moment that was rather noticeable, for she was never one to hesitate to speak her mind. “I, uh… I do believe I promised you a drink?”
Adelina was unsure of how to respond. For a woman so intimidating, the Lady was speaking to her more like a peer than a peasant, though Adelina figured it may have been partly due to the liqueur. “I… um,” she cleared her throat in a stammer.
“Come, woman,” the Lady beckoned her with a sharp snap of the fingers. “Sit.”
And there it was, suddenly. The inti
midating and demanding figure of the Lady had returned. Nervously, Adelina walked over and took a seat across from her. The only light around them was from the lanterns that hung at every corner of the lavish gardens, and the only sounds were the faint distant echoes of the river’s current and the night watchmen pacing restlessly in the dark.
“Don’t look so bloody tense,” said the Lady. “Relax. Have a drink.”
Adelina glanced blankly at the table. “There’s only one goblet, m’lady…”
“Oh,” Lady Brunylda raised a brow. “Apologies… Here, have mine.”
She poured a bit more liqueur into the goblet and kept the bottle for herself. Adelina wanted to refuse the drink, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She could smell the Lady’s breath from across the table, and it reeked of liqueur; not that she judged her, for Adelina was never one to shy away from a drink. But after everything that had happened, drinking was the last thing on her mind. Still, out of respect, she lifted the goblet to her lips and took a sip.
The liqueur was strong. Quite strong.
She felt the burn instantly as it made its way down her throat.
They sat there in silence for a moment and while Adelina felt a touch of discomfort, the Lady appeared dazed and out of sorts, profoundly lost in her thoughts as if reminiscing on her entire past life over the course of just a few hours.
“I saw what happened out there,” Adelina broke the silence first. “Should I congratulate you, m’lady?
The Lady shook her head and scoffed, though more at the situation than at Adelina. There were no words or gestures from her, not even a smile. Her face was as hard as stone. It was as if she still couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea that she was, by law, the Lady Regent of Val Havyn.
“Must be a lot to take in,” Adelina went on. “To be the first Lady Regent ever t-”
“Stop that,” the Lady interrupted. “I don’t wish to think about it.”
Except it was all she could think about, if she was speaking honestly…