All Jax had left of his family was almost taken away from him, and hell if he didn’t do something about it.
But what could he do, really?
He just sat back as he watched Elix fly by. Almost suddenly, the buildings disappeared for the king to momentarily see distant mountain peaks. “Are we crossing the Jupiteria River?”
The escort nodded, and Jax fixed his gaze outside, miffed at how fascinated he was as the hover ascended towards the Citadel on the land bridge, the river that was the clearest body of water that Jax had seen in a long time, rushing beneath them.
And then the gates that looked impenetrable heaved open for his arrival, and he had to physically restrain himself from scowling at the fountains that danced jovially in front of what Jax would call his most beautiful prison cell yet.
The entire place was breathtaking, annoyingly so, but Jax barely had time to drink it in as someone who introduced themselves as Lilly Srey, the Royal Advisor of the Immortale Crown, came out to greet him, her face frozen in youth and a politician’s smile.
Pushing out the thought of Areya, he turned to Advisor Srey, dropping the painfully wide smile in lieu of a serious, polite, and appropriately concerned face. “Am I not to head for the signing but immediately?”
“General Kessia is busy at the moment, but she has instructed for you to follow me and get comfortable.”
“The city truly is a remarkable place,” Jax remarked, hands stiff behind his back as his steps fell in line with the Advisor’s. “I’m dreadfully unacquainted with it, however,” he said, purposefully creating a moment’s silence for deliberation.
“After your comforts have been arranged and all is settled, I am sure we will be able to provide for you, a guided tour. Now,” the Advisor started, ushering Jax into the Citadel. “Follow me to your room.”
And Jax had no choice but to follow.
…
His guide, a boy around 13 who certainly didn’t act older than how he looked, was either overzealous or clueless, or maybe a combination of both, because it only took less than a minute of Jax’s subtle hints before the boy came up with the genius idea of showing the King of NNR the Immortales’ war efforts.
With that job done so easily, Jax felt the jitters that plagued his every movement subside a bit.
In his lovely guide’s defense, however, Jax decided that the Immortales’ had nothing to worry about; they were light years ahead of NNR. Stel wasn’t wrong when she had wearily informed him about the hopelessness of their entire situation as soon as she returned from this marble and gold palace- in fact, there was an endless building, the entire curving first floor dedicated to ideas and plans alone, filled with designs and devices.
Jax skimmed his hand over a certain design that almost exactly replicated a Second Era war tactic. Jax was entirely too familiar with the plan; he had sketched it out himself countless times. But the Immortales had taken some innovative risks that Jax had never thought about before, and he cursed himself for not thinking about it in the same way. He turned in the room, almost breathless from the sheer outnumbering of everything that could be done on NNR compared to here.
“You have quite the collection,” he mused, soaking in his surroundings. Ever since he was a child, Jax could never sit still through formal events like May, but he had a knack for remembering things to a scary amount of detail. If he could properly look at these inventions the way he was, just for a few moments longer, he would be able to sketch these out in detail for Z, no problem. He just needed a little time.
“You seem to know a lot of these projects,” Jax started, remembering how the boy had prattled on about the ideas for minutes on end earlier. “Are you interested in the line?”
“Yes, very. My mother helps them, and being surrounded by calculations and diagrams my entire life has affected my preference, I suppose.”
He was done talking, and luckily, Jax was done collecting information as well. “I can sympathize. I have, after all, taken after my father’s profession. Shall we continue?”
…
The curving hallway stopped sooner than Jax anticipated, a red door standing in front of him. On his left, where there used to be blueprints and charcoal sketches that were tacked onto the wall, was a huge bulletin board that looked a little like a blank canvas to Jax. Hold potential for a stunning (and likely deadly) masterpiece.
“What’s this?” he couldn’t help but ask, and he noticed the boy squirm a bit out of the corner of his eye.
“We don’t know as of yet. Our General’s newest and most brilliant ideas go here.”
Jax nodded, his eyes straying to the door, and the boy trailed his gaze, eyes widening as he realized what the king was looking at. He continued quickly before Jax could ask any more questions.
“And that’s another classified project,”
Whatever this classified project was, it clearly was important enough to send the boy into a frenzy so Jax dropped the matter, inventoried the information, and smiled. “I completely understand the Immortale Queen’s want of privacy,”
“You don’t hear a lot of Elix in NNR?” the boy suddenly asked, to which Jax shook his head, suspicious. “I’m not sure if I should be the one telling you this but I think you should know. General Kessia isn`t the Immortale Queen.”
Wait, what?
“She is not?” Jax felt his brow furrow. He couldn’t sign the Treaty with anyone other than the Immortale Queen.
“Our General is the head of Elix. But, if I may suggest, Your Majesty, you should take the matter up with her.”
While the boy might have been right about news in Elix not being business in NNR, Jax made it his business as king. He knew about the laws of Elix, and he knew that the head was always, always, the Immortale Queen. So if General Kessia was the head of the government, what was keeping her from becoming the Queen? But instead of pushing and losing his newfound informant’s trust, Jax smiled and turned away from the door.
“Well, the gardens looked magnificent. Would you care to show me around? —I have a particular fondness for roses.”
The boy looked grateful for the change of subject and beamed, beginning another long monologue of the gossip and history behind the gardeners that kept their flowers and roses in top condition.
But he never got to showing Jax the roses, because as soon as they stepped outside, there was a girl looking to be around 16 waiting for them.
Her fair hair was pulled and clipped away from her face, almost as sleek as her slate pantsuit, which was absolutely creaseless. Her hard smile looked predatory as her baby blue eyes zoomed in on Jax as if he were the prey. “Malachi, dismissed.” The boy that had served as Jax’s guide who was in a deep bow, straightened and scurried off.
She held out a hand, gloved with metal chains. “Sorry for the delay; business held me up. It’s an awaited pleasure to meet you King Jaxcon. I am General Kessia,”
Ever the gentleman, Jax bowed to press a kiss to the hand, a mixture of the cold metal of her glove and the warmth of her skin meeting his own. “The pleasure is all mine, General. Everyone has been so hospitable, and Malachi was just about to show me to your rose gardens,”
“Well, allow me to pick up where your guide has left off.” With a wave of her hand, the guards behind them stayed in formation, giving them both some privacy of conversation. “We have the most exotic and rare varieties here.”
With her arm settled in the nook of his, they walked forwards towards the gardens, both planning the demise of the other and both smiling as radiantly as possible.
“I look forward to it, General,” Jax said, smiling.
Let the games begin.
Sixty
CRIMSON was everywhere. The running patterns of blood, tracing across her shirt, was somehow beautiful in a morbid sort of way. Blooming in intricate webwork, Stel watched as it expanded outward in a horrid fascination. It was going everywhere. And it was spreading so fast.
And it was Celine’s blood. Shaking herself o
ut of her stupor, Stel, not finding anything else, pressed her hand against the wound, trying in vain to stem the flow of the blood, which was exiting Celine’s body rapidly.
“Don’t. Stel, don’t,” Celine managed out, her weak voice broken with her irregular breaths. Her dying breaths.
“But, you’re, you’re-” she struggled to manage the words out, “Why?”
“You have to go, and I was going to die anyway. I’d rather ease the suffering and die on my own terms.” Stel felt the tears welling as she pressed her hands even harder into Celine’s body, desperately clinging on to the vibrant life of Celine Hollingsworth, which was fading away much too quickly.
“We’ll drag your body if we have to; I’m not leaving you Elix to die!” Her voice was shrill, and she felt her breaths become quick and shallow, the exact opposite of Celine.
“Go,” Celine’s somehow controlled whisper, harsh with what might just be her last command, cut into Stel’s hysteria, pulling her back down to Earth. “You’re losing time.”
“Time? Is that what you’re going to talk about because you most certainly deserve more than you got. Okay, you take your own life. Since when was Celine Hollingsworth selfish? What about your parents, about all 6 of your brothers? What about Jax? About all of us? I saw Fey go and I’m not going to see you die as-”
A deep exhale, a guttural rattle, the sound of a struggle, was what made Stel stop in her tracks, and look down hoping, hoping, just hoping that she wasn’t-
But it was true. She didn’t have to look at the still chest, at the glassy eyes. She just knew, because something in her was torn away from her body and thrown out of her life.
Celine Hollingsworth was dead.
And the tears started to fall.
“She’s gone,” Stel announced weakly, though she wasn’t sure if it was for Z or herself. Hearing the words out loud—it provided a sort of reality that Stel was fighting so hard to not acknowledge. She looked up and saw that the mechanic was still facing away from her and Celine’s body. “Z?”
He provided no answer.
“Z?” He finally turned, and Stel saw that hollowness in his eyes. His shoulders were slumped, his eyes were glazed over, but there were no traces of tears on his face. He just looked out of his body. “Z!” she yelled, and he looked over at her, but he didn’t quite look with that same awareness, the spark.
“She’s gone,” he repeated, looking past her.
“She is.”
Z’s eyes met hers. “It’s not your-”
“Shut up! I don’t want any of that ‘it’s not your fault’. Because it is! It’s because of me that she’s dead, isn’t it? If I just answered the questions, she would have a chance.”
“Celine would rather die this way, than have you spill your guts. This was her duty, and she fulfilled it.”
“But I still confessed, didn’t I? I couldn’t even get that one part right,” she whispered, almost surprised at her reaction to this. At Fey’s death, she had snapped. That was most like her—trying to push everything out of her way—the head-strong, ignorant solution. But now she felt snuffed out. Like her fire was finally out, and she never wanted it to be lit again, not if it meant suffering any more.
How much could one person take?
Z started to walk towards Celine, crouching by her head. “Self-pity does not become you.”
Stel looked up, tears blurring her vision, though she was sure that Z’s eyes were tearing up. “What?”
“That’s what Celine told me. Like self-pity was one of her scarves,” he let out a laugh that was most definitely watery. His hand dropped to her eyes, still open. Ever since joining the Strategists, Stel had always been trying to figure out what colour the blonde’s eyes were; now she saw it all so clearly. Deep green swirling with rich brown, was now haunting her mind; the aliveness of a dead person’s eyes.
Z, with one last look, pressed them shut, closing his eyes while doing it. It was so personal, that Stel almost felt like leaving. She knew how close those two were, and though she didn’t spend as much time with Celine as she would’ve liked, she knew just how vivid of a person Celine was. And now-
“Why?”
Stel couldn’t see his eyes, which were still pressed shut, but she could imagine the hurt in them. The broken shards of his happiness sharp in his eyes. “I don’t know,”
“How,” he started, and she swallowed, the harshness of his voice cutting away her faith in good things, conveying to her just how torn up he was, “can they- can they kill like this?”
There was something in his voice, toxic and destructive, the thing that was eating away at him, the guilt and pain and resentment, that was scaring Stel. The self-destructiveness. The hollowness. The capability to inflict the same pain that he was feeling.
“Z. The only thing we can do is to try and not let their deaths be in-” Stel cut herself off, unable to play into a role of wisdom. That was always Jax’s or Celine’s role—and why was Celine dead? —and Stel didn’t have the strength in her to fight. “Screw it. The bigger thing to do would be to say that you shouldn’t hate them but fight with love. But who can do that? I can only hate, at this point.”
A tear fell from Z’s cheek and landed on the cold one of Celine below him. That sight tore Stel apart.
Z was right. How could they? These were lives that didn’t do anything to harm anyone else, ever. The people that would rather sacrifice their life to let sinners live. The selfless. The kind that they didn’t have anymore. Celine, who wanted Stel and Z to complete their mission, and made sure that the truth was brought to justice, something that Stel could never think about, let alone do. Of course, the good people were the kind that had to go. The good people were the people whose blood was spilt. They were killing more than one person when Celine died. Z crying in a mess, the incomparable grief that Jax would feel when he would find out, the guilt that Jan would face because he couldn’t set things right in time.
Any doubt of her friends’ faithfulness ebbed away. Because the same Celine who had tried to delay the pain of Fey’s death for her, had just stabbed herself for her. And Stel was just too ignorant and selfish to thank her.
“Let’s go,” Z suddenly said, Stel looking up at him in surprise. Shock was the majority of his expression, though she saw broken pieces ready to fall with a resounding crash, ready to fight. He was up on his two feet, darkness shadowing his features.
“We can’t just leave her here!”
“Stel look; she died for this-” his voice broke, and Stel immediately knew that the strength he was showing wouldn’t last.
Celine had died for a chance, this one sliver of hope that they might make it were the unspoken words.
Stel felt something in her harden up. Celine had started it, and now they would end it for once.
She pushed herself off the floor, wiping her tears away fiercely, nodding her head numbly. “Now we go and avenge her.”
Sixty-One
JAX was starting to prefer the solitude of his room because at least there the darkness was familiar. Now, he was surrounded by festivities that he could care less about, especially now since the fate of the Strategists was unknown to him. But here Jax was, sitting primly on a balcony of the Citadel, pretending as if he gave a damn about the parade that was flaunting the history of Elix and the triumph of Immortales in his face.
He just really needed to find them.
Kessia seemed to realize he was on edge too and seemed to relish it, if the asperity of her smile was anything to go by. “Now, we will go to a feast. Nothing but the absolute best,” she assured him, the smile somehow not meeting her eyes, which almost surprised Jax. But then he reminded himself that she wasn’t a politician in the same way the Immortale Queen was. Jax didn’t know exactly who Kessia was, but whoever she was, she was powerful. But she commanded power in a forceful way, every word she said was more a command on a battlefield than an order in court.
“The parade is extremely fascinating to watch. Th
e last time I ever witnessed such a spectacle, was when I was younger and had come here with my father.”
“Ah, yes. My deepest condolences about King Calix,” she said, and even though Jax wore his smile like a pro, that comment almost caused him to falter. Honestly, it should have been expected that leaders of different Regions and his citizens alike would be sorry for him every corner he turned, whether they knew his father well or not, and the same should have been expected for the leader of the Immortales.
But knowing that this was the person who had sent Areya down to his palace to kill his father, this was the person who murdered the late king, Jax almost felt that rage within him burst up again because here she was, pretending as if she cared. She sat here, unguarded, but Jax couldn’t lay a hand on her, and she knew it.
Of course, she knew.
So Jax let his play of pretense drop a bit, his smile burning as brightly as before while his eyes were dark with his anger. “The news came as a shock, I am sure. Now, I heard something about a feast?”
…
The feast was of course, great, and despite all of his want to make the foods out to taste like cardboard, everything really did taste magnificent. He was introduced to a few high ranking Immortales, and there was even a seat left empty in memory of Arleyene Crawford, which he was sure was a taunt meant for him, but he took it in stride, not allowing himself to fall prey to their games. So he instead offered his ‘sorry’s and went on spearing his salad as if he didn’t know what they were talking about. He wasn’t sure if they knew, but he did.
Of course, he knew.
“You will be staying with us for some time?” someone asked, and it took Jax a moment to register that it was directed at him, so he smiled, motioning for the servant in front of him to stop pouring his wine.
“I’m afraid not. I will be leaving immediately after the signing,” he took a delicate sip, looking at them all, making his own mental observations and predictions of what was running through their minds at that moment. “You have all been so welcoming, but I’m afraid that there are urgent matters in NNR that I must attend to as soon as possible. My stay has indeed already been longer than expected,”
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