But that was the morning, and now was the night. And while the hardest part was over and the palace was quiet, Jax knew that these moments of relative peace were just for them to pause and catch their breath. Jax wasn’t naïve enough to think that they were at peace—they never were—rather than not at war.
It hadn’t even been a year of Jax’s ruling, but he still managed to screw everything up. Intentions never mattered, no matter what. Results did. He had tried, god, he tried. He had formed the Strategists in the hopes to help re-build NNR. He had managed to get all the Governors into one spot so that they could discuss the Razed and do something about it, but then he was taken hostage by Paris Avelapoulos. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to do this. Maybe he really was never meant to be king.
Countless lives were lost because of him. And what kind of king murdered his own people? Fey was dead. Celine was dead. Deaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddea-
Dead.
But the world didn’t stop spinning, even for the grief of the king of NNR. So Jax didn’t grieve. He threw himself into work, because there was too much that needed to be done, and Jaxcon Gallagher would be useless if he was wallowing in tears. If he couldn’t be the king that NNR needed or deserved, he would at the very least, try. For Fey and Celine and all those lives lost.
With every aching atom in his body, he would try to make up for all those seconds that their lives couldn’t encompass because of him. And no matter how he kept turning up short, he would try, because Jax grew up by the seaside. He learnt the lessons of the water by the shore throughout his years. And no matter how often the shore turned away the waves, they would always come crashing back. The tides would come and go, but the waves never subsided.
And Jaxcon Gallagher was the ocean waves, unrelenting and volatile.
There was too much to be done for Jax to stop and listen to that dull ache thrumming in his body, for him to stop and wait as he felt the phantom limb of Fey’s and Celine’s and Stel’s presence. He roughly sketched out the designs he had seen on Elix for Z (Jax had never been good at art), and he kept going until he smudged his entire picture with his own palms, the dark charcoal glaring up at him from his page. You failed, you failed, you failed.
“Jax?” The king glanced upwards to see Z, half in his office, concern clear on his face. “You okay?”
Jax offered no response, instead moving to wipe his hands on the handkerchief beside him (like the one that he always gave Celine) so he could move onto his next plans.
“What the hell are you doing?” Z asked again, and Jax pressed even harder with his graphite.
“What do you think,” he asked, gripping his pencil furiously, “that I’m doing?”
“Stealing my vibe. I’m the one who overworks themselves constantly, remember? Or do you need another intervention?”
Jax’s hand stilled, his eyes closed in pain. “A war is on the horizon for my nation. I need to protect them.”
“You’re 19, Jax,” Z sighed with something short of worry and Jax opened his eyes to look furiously at him.
“And Celine was 18. Fey turned 17 only a month ago. They’re dead, because of me and my inability to keep my own people safe,” Z opened his mouth, but Jax put out a hand to stop him. “I really don’t want to hear it.”
Z offered no response, instead moving over to Jax’s desk, hand skimming over the countless pages strewn haphazardly across the mahogany. “Where did you get these?”
Teeth still half gritted, Jax warily accepted Z’s attempt to change the topic. “War Hall on Elix. I examined the plans there so I could sketch them out for you, here. To see if you can understand any of it.”
“I can. Did you remember all this? With one look?” the mechanic asked, eyes wide.
“Yes. I’d like to get started on whatever project could be the most helpful to us at once.”
Z’s eyes were narrowed, though he slowly nodded. “Yeah; on it. You need an assistant, Jax. Someone to fill in the place of Areya.”
“There are few people I can trust in this palace now, Z. Areya was my closest confidant, and look how that turned out. I will, eventually, but these things are too crucial to hand off to people that I cannot be sure about,” Jax sighed, expecting Z’s reaction to be boisterous or combative.
To his surprise, Z agreed. “Alright,”
“Alright?”
“Alright,” Z echoed, looking somewhat amused. With a small smirk, he swept the papers into his hands. “I’ll be taking these off of your shoulders. I’ll add adjustments of that sort. Need anything else, now that I’m here?”Actually, yes,” Jax couldn’t help a wry smile at how shocked Z looked with that information. Surely the man had realized by now that Jax trusted him. “I need you to brief Captain Dugan with O67,”
“O67? The plan we discussed on the boat?” Z asked, his voice growing in pitch. Jax nodded. “That’s a serious course of action.”
There were a million things that Jax could’ve said in that moment, ‘don’t question me’, ‘what’s a better solution?’, ‘this isn’t your choice’. But he knew that Z’s opinion mattered just as much as his, and at the same time, that this decision was his call. And he’d seen the plans tacked up on Elix’s wall, he knew that Kessia had a plan. He knew that war was coming, one which they would probably lose, but Jax would be damned if they didn’t at least retaliate first.
So instead, his gaze flitted from the ground to Z’s steady dark eyes, and Jax could feel the heaviness of his own gaze. “I know.”
…
He visited Jan later that evening, who was released from the hospital in the village nearby earlier that day. Of course, Jax decided that January would have to stay there until Jax himself came to get him and made sure that the members of staff there knew that it was under the king’s own strict command that January Kurata-Tormont wasn’t to leave the hospital without Jax himself escorting him out.
And judging by the boy’s reaction when Jax first came into the room, January wasn’t a fan of the king’s decision, the ex-patient moving around the room as well as he could in his wheelchair, his back facing the door.
“Look; I don’t care the godamned king says, I’m getting out-” he paused mid-growl as he noticed that it was not a nurse but the said godamned king who was paying him a visit. “You’re exercising too much power to keep me here.”
“What does exercising too much power even mean for the king of NNR?” Jax asked with a forced air of ease that he knew Jan could see right through, even without his heightened sense of lies and truths. He sat down on the edge of the hospital bed glancing concernedly at Jan, who was looking out the window, leaning on the sill. “How are you?”
“I can’t breathe properly and probably will only be able to in a week, I’ve been locked up in a hospital long past my recovery, and I was forced to hide and wait as my friends were captured and tortured. Plus, a war is on our heels. How do you think I feel?” Jan listed off, darkly quirking an eyebrow.
“Just fine then,” Jax darkly muttered. “You need to take it easy.”
Jan turned to give Jax a look, huffing. “Are you kidding me? You literally locked me up for a week-”
“—you were out just yesterday—” Jax interrupted.
“-and I’m fine. I’ve been fine for a long time, Jaxcon.”
Jax straightened his shirt, eying Jan distrustfully. “You said you couldn’t properly breathe.”
“I was trapped in the passageway with smoke filling my lungs. Of course, I’m not okay from a medical standpoint, but being trapped in this building for any longer is actually going to be the end of me,” he sighed, and Jax recognized the darkness that came flooding into Jan’s slate grey eyes on the boy’s inhale, storm clouds rolling in the distance that was all too close for January Kurata-Tormont.
“Talk to me,” Jax said, not wanting Jan to bottle any of it up. And maybe, just maybe, Jax wanted to feel something through all of this, and if that was done through sympathizing with Jan, so be it.
“I
now know how Celine felt in that elevator. That constricting feeling when you can’t breathe anymore. The most stupid part of it, is the fact that I had to stay there while they were dragged away, screaming. When you all were on Elix, braving it all, I was stuck beneath floorboards so everyone would stay safe, but even then-” he broke off, posture slumped. “Celine died, and I was the most useless person in it all, because I was the only one who could save her but it still wasn’t enough. I cannot sit and wait in this room for any longer, knowing what’s coming and that you and Z and maybe even Stel are doing something about it, or I will go mad,” he paused for a moment, before his back straightened up. “This better be you getting me out of here Jax, or god so help me-”
“You’re free,” Jax interrupted. “You’ll have to take it easy though.”
January paused again, clearly not expecting that easy of a victory, but the words that came out of his mouth surprised Jax. “Why did you put me here when I could’ve spent the last few days in the palace? The entire place hasn’t burned down, and I know you’d like to have a close eye on me. So why here?”
Jax got his tongue to work two beats later, hesitation making Jan’s stance shift into suspicion. “I did it so you wouldn’t feel indebted to stay. You could leave the palace if you want to, January,” Jax told him, his voice quiet though his eyes loud.
He understood why Stel left, and even though January gave no indication of wanting the same thing, Jax knew that it wasn’t fair to pull him into a war that Jax had caused. Z stayed in the palace, but pulled out of The Strategists, claiming that there was no way it would or should work without the brilliance and determination of Celine, Fey, and Stel. January agreed immediately that the dissolution of The Strategists needed to be done. And The Strategists’ goal was completed, so now it was over.
Fey and Celine were dead, Stel had left, The Strategists were disbanded, and the palace was damaged along with everyone else’s mental well-being, so Jax knew that he had to give January every opportunity to leave if he wanted.
Jax just didn’t want another name in the book of those who laid down their lives for him.
“Okay,” Jan said, shocking Jax out of his reverie.
“Okay?” the king repeated, and the corners of Jan’s mouth turned up in a pained smile.
“Okay. You still have your hero-complex, and you think that letting me run like Hathaway will help your conscience. And maybe it will. But luckily, I don’t have that same hero-complex, so I feel zero inclination to make decisions just to make you feel better. I’m staying at the palace to help you fight this war. And you’d be a fool to think otherwise, Your Majesty.”
This time, Jax felt his own mouth quirk upwards in what seemed to be the first smile in a long time. “Good. There’s a meeting in 3 hours. Don’t be late.”
And with that, he left, knocking twice on the doorframe before he did.
…
“Dugan.”
“Your Majesty. The guards have all reported, and I am pleased to report myself that-”
“Thank you, Dugan, but it isn’t that sort of meeting,” This causes Dugan to pause, looking at his king questioningly. “I trust Z has approached you?”
“Indeed, he has. What is the matter, Majesty?”
“War. It’s on our footsteps, and we need to be ready. We need to create a plan,” Dugan nods, his eyes heavy with all the secrets that Jax himself fell prey to the moment that Calix’s heartbeat went flat. Captain Dugan wasn’t just an outgoing, talkative Captain of the Royal Guard. He was the Chief of Secret Intelligence Services, specializing in the WOLVes branch of the MI8.
Jax knew the many ways of hiding from gravity; hiding from the one thing that would always find you and your burden of responsibility, threatening to fold you over and swallow you whole. Captain Dugan hid behind his jovial smiles and hearty laughs, seemingly always a bit too drunk on the liquor of life and foolishness of mortality. But Jax knew better than to undermine him; there was always that unyielding steel in Captain Dugan’s eyes, the flinting of steel when a guard would report late or when the Captain donned his M18 uniform with an iron-rod straight back.
Dugan had seen war and conflict, and he knew the heaviness of blood staining his conscience that Jax empathized with. “Do you have an idea of what to do, Your Majesty?” Dugan asked, his weathered face hard.
“Project O67. I want preparation on all fronts, focusing on rebel activity and more so, Immortale activity. But most importantly, I have a few blueprints I want you to look over and get started on as soon as you can.”
Dugan nodded, looking deep in thought with strategies and planning of how to execute a contingency plan that had been in formation for years. “Civilians?”
Jax stood up from his seat, gathering his papers so he could start to make his way to the meeting room, Dugan falling in stride with the king. “They need to be protected. I was thinking about the Siph.”
“That’s been broken for decades. We don’t know about the stability of the structures, and reopening them would be a massive undertaking, Your Majesty.”
“I am aware. That’s where my blueprints and secret weapon of the most brilliant mechanic come into play. I have a particularly large file of documents, reports, blueprints, and plans, for you to review. If I personally deliver it to you later today, will it be in safe hands?” Jax asked, thinking of Areya Carson all over again. Except Captain Dugan wasn’t Areya Carson, because he had loyalties that ran deeper than the history of NNR; the man valued nation over most things in life.
And Captain Dugan stopped at Jax’s question, pivoting on his heel so he was facing his king, his eyes reflecting sincerity. “I will swear my life to protect those files, Your Majesty.”
“Good,” Jax declared, clapping Dugan on the shoulder, managing a small smile. “You have other business to attend to?”
“That I do. The newest guard recruits are quite a handful,” he added, his usual mirth glittering in his eye once again. He gave Jax a bow, “Your Majesty.”
But Jax had moved forward only a few paces, barely having time to think about his upcoming meeting with those who remained in the disbanding of the Strategists when the Captain called him back.
“King Jaxcon?”
Jax whirred on the voice, eyebrows springing up. “Yes, Captain?”
“The WOLVes?” he asked, not needing a word more, because the invocation of their name was all that was really needed for the true question to be asked.
Jax knew the gravity of the situation if they were calling in the WOLVes, but Jax already knew what kind of situation they were in when he seriously started to consider reopening the series of web working tunnels that lay beneath NNR. The Siphon was used during the Second Era and earlier on in the Third, the safe haven for civilians from bomb blasts and the last defense for Eartherners. But the Siph hadn’t been opened in years, and for Jax to contemplate bringing the tunnels back to life, he figured that the WOLVes weren’t too far of a stretch.
So Jax didn’t voice his concerns, instead squaring his shoulders and making sure his voice was steady like what he always did. Like what he always would have to do. “We’ll do what we have to do,”
Dugan only nodded at that, the answer enough for the Captain as he continued on his path opposite to Jax’s own. It had been less than a year than the fateful night that Jax started this all, but he knew that that night wasn’t even the beginning. Now, was the beginning, because war was coming, and as he walked purposefully to the Meeting Room, Jax knew that he wouldn’t let his nation go into this one without at least being prepared.
And now King Jaxcon, House of Gallagher, was going to follow his own orders, and would do what he had to.
Epilogue
meanwhile
THERE was an odd beauty to NNR.
When you looked at it from the top of the tower of glass, the clouds only a reach away, you couldn’t even see the rubble. You couldn’t hear the cries of the imprisoned or the curses of the dying.
Th
e entire damn place was dying, actually.
Hills that were miraculously untouched—pure and alive—and rivulets of salted tears that ran in the depressions between grounds of bloodied earth were the only remnants of NNR as an untainted place. The reminder that the world wasn’t always dead or dying or fighting or ruined.
She remembered the world then. Remembered the simplicity of a world undivided; but those memories were nothing more than the wistful thinking of a young mind that had never seen the world, because the world was always divided. She had lived long enough to see power and how it consumed, lived long enough to see strife and discord in a supposed harmony. To see the race of people with wise, haunted eyes and too many years lived to have not prepared for anarchy, uprooted from the throne and pushed to the edge of the world.
She had felt the pain of mortals, but she had lived long enough to have the luxury of forgetting.
She had witnessed the fall of the great kings of the land with sloping mountains that sprawled into the cities of eroding buildings, the faint imagery of the life that had thrummed in these metropolises blown in by the salty wind off shore. Of the cowardly kings of the species whose surety of the end of their brittle expendable lives was rivalled only by their unbridled passion and feeling.
She had lived long enough to be surprised by the stubbornness of the fragile mortals.
She liked them.
While she was eternal, they were matches. So bright, so ardent, and so sure to burn out quickly. Some of them were stars, however. Some of them lit up the night skies even long after their deaths.
She liked them.
It really was a shame that the Age of the Mortals would have to end.
“Imperatrix. The test subjects have arrived,” A meek voice called from behind her, and though she did not turn, she bit back a smile.
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