by Drae Box
Escaped. She got Cally’s regular welcome then.
“She’s an acqu—”
“You’ve been crying,” said Aldora, a hand wiping at his cheek.
Raneth sniffed and turned away. “Yeah.”
“It’s alright. I know about Cray and the others,” her voice was soft with understanding. She slipped a hand over his. “I’m so sorry, Raneth. I know you were close to him and Lemuela. Rikward and Alagar too. What can I do to help?”
Help?
Raneth turned away from looking at the slightest hint of a hill a small distance away from them and looked at Aldora. Her brown eyes glinted back at him in the dark, softly lit by the moonlight. His chest swelled with warmth as he smiled at her.
I love this woman.
Raneth had been more than aware of his love for Aldora — it was why he hoped to marry her regardless of what his father and Cally insisted upon, but that she was so willing, so eager to help... To just ask… If he could have fallen in love with her all over again, he would have, and it would have hurt. Instead, he gave her hand a grateful squeeze, thankful that Aldora and likely many of the friends he had made over the years, would be so willing to be here for him. To help him despite the stupid newspaper’s jumped conclusion, even when King Philander had needed to see him burst into tears to realise Raneth would never try to seize anybody’s thrones. “Come back to the palace as soon as you can,” he said, the words feeling wrong. The palace was Cray’s home. Not his. “I’ll need your help.”
He leaned over in the saddle, a hand slipping to Aldora’s waist as he pressed a hopeful kiss to Aldora’s lips. Her lips answered his. He drew back, in part because it was a little awkward kissing when on horseback, and smiled at her. “Aldora,” he kept hold of her hand, ignoring how her horse was pawing at the ground. “I love you, and I’m sorry I’ve been so off with you since your uncle.”
She smiled briefly. “I don’t blame you, Raneth. I wouldn’t have come to your room last night if I did. You knew your dad wouldn’t think I was a good match for you—”
Raneth groaned. “What did he say?”
Aldora’s frown showed she was just as irritated by the situation as Raneth was. “That I’m not wife material,” she said. “That I have a lot to prove yet.”
Raneth kissed Aldora’s cheek. “If he and Cally really resist, we’ll use the Bayre Trial of Binding. It should still hold, even with us being active royals again.”
Aldora frowned. “What is it?”
“It’s a way for my dad to test us. He’ll design three tests: one for you, one for me, and then one we do together. We can get married as long as we win two out of three.”
“If not?” asked Aldora.
“He picks my partner and I can’t refuse,” admitted Raneth. He was quiet for a moment. “Somebody tried to frame me or Cray in an assassination attempt on King Philander.”
“Southern Kingdom’s king? You’re… cousin?” she asked hesitantly.
“Cousin,” confirmed Raneth. “The men that attacked Philander were dressed as royal officials, so whatever this is that your uncle has started, we’ll have plenty of chances to show my dad you and me are perfect for each other.”
Chapter Seven
Aldora
The wet streets gleamed in the morning light as Aldora led her borrowed horse towards Icoque Village’s southern gate. It kept pressing its nose against the back of her shoulder, as if it remembered her from its days as a foal — it was one of the horses her father had bred years before. Its happiness to be with her was a welcomed reprieve from the sharp looks and mutterings that seemed to smother her;
eyes were upon her everywhere she looked. The whole of the village seemed to be up and about, helping with repairs, or heading somewhere to get supplies for their family’s needs.
Aldora slowed as she came alongside the remains of Broken Crown’s headquarters. Once a factory, her uncle had retrofitted the building to be his terrorist organisation’s headquarters. It was her first time seeing it since the night she had escaped, when Raneth and his team had attacked the building. She blinked, ignoring as her horse pressed his nose against her shoulder. She’d seen the building in pictures in The Giften Daily Newspaper, but… It was completely destroyed. Brickwork and blackened beams of wood jutted out from where it had stood, and pieces of burnt furniture peeked out from the rubble. Ankle-deep within it, men from the Second Legion were picking through what remained.
The Shotput of Power had completely levelled the building.
Aldora watched as the burnt skull of one of the Broken Crown members was eased free of the rubble, a female legionary in Giften’s green fatigues grimacing. “Got another one,” shouted the woman, straightening and looking towards a man wearing a heavy black cloak with Giften’s three gold rings entwined in its centre. Tucked under his arm was a silver helmet with blue bristles that ran from one ear to the other.
A centurion.
“Put it with the others, and find the rest of their body,” said the centurion, his tone warning that he was dying of boredom.
Aldora vaguely remembered Raneth mentioning he had some of the army helping to shift through the wreckage, to find anything that could help them mop up Broken Crown or find her uncle.
Somebody cleared their throat next to Aldora, and she turned just in time to watch a globule of saliva land on her left shoulder. She frowned, watching the foamy spit sliding down her brown leather jacket before she turned her focus onto the man responsible — a civilian. He grinned at her, apparently pleased.
Aldora clenched her right hand at her side, wondering if she could get away with hitting the man’s face as many times as needed until his nose broke.
“You’re a traitor,” he snarled, jabbing her chest with a finger. “You don’t deserve to be free.”
Aldora took a slow breath. It won’t do to lose my temper, as much as I want to.
“I’m not a traitor,” she said, almost growling out the words. “I haven’t betrayed anyone.”
The man frowned, shaking his head. “Liar. You led the royal official captain — your boyfriend — into a trap.”
“No, I didn’t.”
It was the same argument that kept being shoved in her face. The same conclusion so many Giftens had come to, with barely any of the facts, even though she and Raneth had both tried to use the newspaper to lay it out straight; Giften had picked a scapegoat, somebody to blame for not stopping Denzel Leoma before it happened, and with Aldora’s close family ties, the theft of the Dagger of Protection, and then her attempt to save Raneth by joining Broken Crown, she was perfect.
She narrowed her eyes at the man. He wasn’t that much taller than her, but his muscles warned she shouldn’t get into a punching match. “I didn’t betray Raneth,” snarled Aldora. “I would never betray him. Don’t you get it?” She glanced at his bubbly saliva on her shoulder as it started to slip down her jacket. “I made the wrong decision, that’s all. I was trying to protect him and my sister.” She wanted a shower. Wanted to get his filth off her but she couldn’t. Where would she go? Back to the home of her father’s friend? It would slow her down. She needed to get back to the palace and Raneth. She needed to be there for him, and if this was how easily Giften’s loyalty could switch, just for Raneth.
Screw Giften.
She didn’t get why Raneth loved it so much when its people were so fickle, but if Giften was Raneth’s home, then it would remain hers too. “How would you know anyway?” she snapped, toeing at a piece of wreckage. It was the partial remains of a wooden crate, cracked and blackened. “Were you there?”
The man bristled. If he said yes, he would be admitting to being a member of her uncle’s terrorist organisation, which Raneth had ordered all law enforcers to put to death or arrest. It was harsh but needed; too many people had died in the days her uncle had controlled the Giften Kingdom. Those that remained were furious, looking to Raneth for swift justice as they waited for their true king to return home.
Aldora waited, slipping a hand onto her hip. “Well?” she said.
The man shook his head. “No, but if you’d never given―”
“I never gave anyone the Dagger of Protection.” Her heart thudded so angrily in her chest that she wanted to suck in a breath and blast the man across the wreckage with her gift. Just one scream as a fox, a lion, any animal, and he would be flung away from her as if he weighed nothing. Doing that would only cause her more problems though, and she was in enough trouble as it was. She was clenching her right fist so hard that her chewed fingernails bit into her skin, not yet drawing blood, but enough that it hurt. “Raneth and I weren’t in Giften in the days leading up to what my uncle did, and we weren’t here for the first few days either. Once we came home, once we realised something was wrong, we both did what we thought was best. I wanted to talk to my uncle, not shove a sword in his gut.”
She knew it would take time for Rider Catigowli — a royal official that excelled in hunting murderers, rapists and terrorists — to find her uncle. Yet she wished he would hurry up and succeed. At least then, Giften’s outrage might quell a bit. “For all the good talking to him did,” she murmured, eyes blazing. “Now go away before I make you.”
Maybe it was the way she snarled out the words, maybe it was her well-documented gift but for whatever reason, the man finally turned his back and walked away. She waited until the man was around a corner before she slumped her tense shoulders and let out a shaky breath. She was so fed up of explaining herself, so fed up of how so many had decided she had purposefully betrayed Raneth.
She looked at the half-destroyed buildings around her. Why couldn’t her own village survive? Where was she even going to live once everything settled down? Once Raneth was…
A prince…
She winced at the idea of Raneth boxed into even more rules to follow. When Giften was safe, when she and Raneth had found a way to undo all her uncle’s work, where would that leave them? Last night’s brief meeting suggested he’d decided to marry her regardless, but if he was a prince, surely there was more at stake than just his happiness? Didn’t the kingdom need somebody they looked up to, or at least were neutral about, to be his wife?
Giften’s sodding soil, this was so much easier before Broken Crown.
She watched the legionaries and their two commanding officers for a moment more, before she led her horse nearer to the south gates of Icoque, and mulled over the loss of her own village. Brown Buzzard was beyond repair. Uncle Denzel had used it to point the finger at Cray, to say he was incapable of protecting Giftens, or so Aldora had heard. Some villagers had survived, like her family, but not many. The Brethren hadn’t given anybody a chance to flee before unleashing their gifts.
The daggerless Dagger Bearer was just about to swing onto her horse and use the ride to distract her, when she spotted two royal officials strolling towards her. She gave them a smile. Raneth must have sent them to find me. Which means something else has gone wrong, she decided, her smile faltering.
“Everything OK?” she asked them as they stepped within spitting distance.
“By order of the Royal Official Captain, and under Apocolettio Law, you are under arrest for the murder of King Cray Apocolettio.”
No way.
Aldora looked around her at the villagers walking either side of her, and ahead just a short distance away, where the street crossed over another. Blank faces, and worse — smiling faces — looked back at her. Nobody was going to help her. Whatever this was, Aldora had to deal with it herself. “Are you sure? He probably just meant for you to see me safely to the palace,” she said.
She took in the two royal officials more carefully. She didn’t recognise either of them. Both had olive skin, like Raneth’s, suggesting they were half Giften and half Eastern Barbaric. Both looked miserable, like they had somewhere else to be, and they looked similar to one another. Brothers, she wondered, noting the short black hair that hung down their faces to their ears, and grew long enough at the back to touch the bottom of their necks.
Wait.
She looked at their necks more closely. Both had the royal official jackets open, allowing her to see where their necks met with the blue long-sleeved tops. When Raneth was in uniform, she could usually see at least a small slither of the chain of tiny silver balls that kept his royal official identification tags at his neck. But she couldn’t see theirs.
King Philander was attacked by fake royal officials.
She shifted her weight on her feet and gripped the reins of her horse tighter in her left hand. Was it possible? Had Uncle Denzel and Koyla decided she was a loose end worth killing?
“I’ll come with you,” she said, glancing at a woman dragging a boy past her without looking. The boy stared at Aldora open-mouthed, watching over his shoulder as they passed her. “But I’d like to see your ROIDs first.”
A flicker of confusion flashed across the face of the royal official on the left, and the other drew a sword. A sword that drew Aldora’s attention to their belts.
Not regulation blue, she realised, her gut beginning to churn. And they’re not the right buckles either.
All royal official belts had a solid silver rectangular buckle, and two lines of silver eyelets that ran from one side to the other for weapon attachments. These royal officials only had a sword each.
When I met Raneth for the first time, he just had a sword and a back-up dagger in his boot, but he had the belt. These guys don’t.
“Your ROIDS,” she repeated, holding her free hand out expectantly. If they didn’t know the term, they were not royal officials.
“We don’t have to show you anything,” snapped the one whose face hadn’t shown any reaction to the abbreviation. He took a step forwards, still holding his blade. Aldora noticed that the right side of the blade had a greenish hue, as if somebody had wiped something down it.
“You’re lying.” She stepped back from the approaching men, until she stood at the side of her horse’s saddle. “I’m going to the palace,” she declared. “Raneth’s there. If he wants to arrest me, he can do it himself — I was with Raneth when Cray was killed.” She launched herself into her horse’s saddle.
Nervous, the horse charged straight at the fake royal officials. They jumped to the side. Aldora righted herself on the saddle, slipping her feet into the stirrups and jerking the horse to the left, towards the gates she had been aiming for. They weaved through the men and women in the street, dodging charging carriages and trotting horseback riders, as well as those on foot. When Aldora reached a gap in the street’s foot and horse traffic, she eased her horse to a stop, speaking soothingly at it as she rubbed its shoulder, then looked over hers.
The assassins — or whatever they were — were still coming for her, and they’d found horses. She urged her horse into a gallop and hunkered low, resting her head against the horse’s neck.
Raneth knows I didn’t have anything to do with Cray’s death, she reminded herself, even as she dodged a man in a suit. If I had the Dagger, they wouldn’t be a problem! She should have chased Koyla and Denzel when they escaped.
She scowled as she and her horse clattered down the street. Aldora jerked away from a small family and rushed past, barely avoiding brushing against a big sister that leapt to stand between Aldora’s horse and her gaping younger brother. Hooves clattering behind warned Aldora that her pursuers were too close.
What am I going to do? I can’t do this all the way to the palace. It’ll kill the horse!
“Come on, Finn,” she uttered. She watched the horse’s ear twitch at her voice, but she didn’t feel it surge any faster as she tapped his flanks. “Please.” Her horse kept running at its current gallop.
She looked over her shoulder as she and the horse burst through the village gates and out into the open grassland of Giften. She guided her horse to the left, charging towards the palace, hooves thudding as they flung wet clumps of earth at the men following. She’d have to do something. She couldn’t outrun them
even if she did risk the horse — they could still run on their own feet, and so could she.
I’ll have to use my gift.
She twisted in the saddle and looked at the two men. They weren’t riding close together — there was a large gap between them, and neither rode directly behind her either.
They must hope they can overtake me and grab me from the sides.
She couldn’t let that happen. She’d have to risk taking one out, and then the other, instead of both at the same time. She unhooked her feet from the stirrups and looked at one of the attackers. Fox? The fox had been the first animal she had imitated with her gift, which allowed her to do small or massive damage through sound. She thought of a fox, its sleek red fur, its white bib and chin, and its sharp yap. She screamed, and the air between her and her chosen pursuer rippled in a slicing blue wave. The assassin forced his horse to run to the side and the gift-scream sped past him harmlessly.
No!
She had to get back to Raneth. She had to help Raneth fix her uncle’s mess. He couldn’t do this alone, not with Cray’s death hurting him. She sucked in another breath, thinking of the fox again — the one creature she had the most success with, and—
Her horse shrieked and Aldora forget to breathe as the horse tumbled forwards. She slipped over its head and crashed to the ground. She rolled onto her back, wincing as her ribs twinged. The assassins were drawing closer — one had already dismounted but the other hadn’t. Aldora sucked in a breath. She couldn’t miss this time. If she missed...
She screamed, and the roar of a lion burst from her lips, the air in front of her cascading like a blue wave until it struck the assassin on his mount. The horse’s head was severed and the assassin cried out as his torso was sliced in half. Aldora didn’t have time to watch as his torso slipped onto the ground — the second assassin had pounced and landed with his knees either side of her chest.