by Scott Beith
We had all shared what felt like a lifetime of experiences together, Arlo, Anara, Akoni and I were humbly awaiting to leave the carriage and step out before the city folk. We were the third carriage from the front, but we were going to be one of the first to get out among the crowd, and we’d also been entrusted to oversee and protect the huge diamond in the caravan just in front of us.
And so, approaching the central pavement as King Helios made the middle marketplace space his own podium, he smiled and waited for all his servants to quickly rush out with their brooms and brush the pavement clean before he attempted to raise his hands up and comment about our sudden arrival back home.
Only to be caught off guard as his wife surprised him by coming out from one of the closest clusters of the military crowd, diving onto her grey-bearded husband energetically, almost as if it were an attack of affection. A crowd all laughing to their showmanship as many were surprised he was capable of catching her at all, considering his much older age.
All vitality aside, however, he kissed her passionately, just like a young in-love man would, igniting the enormous and fanatic crowd, elevating their cheering, proving to all that they were a devoted family coming back together again, just like any other in the Capital.
Our queen wasted no time in telling him of our success, talking closely into his ear as she held everyone else’s complete and undivided attention among the shiny mid-afternoon sun and its gleaming crowd.
She pointed towards our carriage with a sense of pride and victory, signaling for her son to come out and show himself before his future subjects. But before Arlo got out of the carriage, he took one last look at me, smiling and shaking his head with embarrassment as war drums started up and the crowd chanted for him to come out.
He then jumped down from the carriage and walked over to the next one before the crowd, taking out the unearthly man-sized crystal from the carriage over. The crowd falling into a frenzy of clapping and shouting as he held it up with all his might, only to slug it along over towards his home and its shaded palace steps.
He paid little attention to the screams of affection and admiration, doing his best to maintain a warrior’s composure, which was baffling considering how insanely heavy that clear rock was, only offering back a few smiles as he hefted the stone up the steps exhaustedly. Ebony came running down the palace steps to greet him, pretending to jump onto him while he battled to hold the crystal, mimicking the actions of Arlo’s affectionate parents if only to humour the spectating crowd.
“Just breathe and take your time,” Anara said to me, pressing a hand lightly onto my back in a gentle reassurance as she looked out to the crowd and her mother. I was left battling my own last minute nerves surrounding the sheer fact that I was next to have to step out into that heavy day light. “No, seriously, just take your time,” she said in comfort towards me. “They will wait all day to put a face to your spreading story,” she added jovially.
As so, I took Anara’s advice and paused by the door. Jade was underneath the carriage’s back exit below me, holding her broom only to offer me her hand in order to help me down. “Welcome home, hero,” she whispered into my ear as I took the plunge.
I could feel the civilians all chanting my name through the vibrations along the ground, which drove their way up my legs from under my feet, the vigorous clapping of an overly ecstatic crowd combined by the drum beats of soldiers standing firm and straight upon my exit in one hugely collaborative respect.
Akoni followed after me, the crowd went just as wild, not only because of his appearance, but rather because of Anara – she had hopped down beside him and was currently holding his hand. Together, they gracefully walked up the sandstone steps. A whole new charm and confident swagger about that shy man as Anara walked along with him before her adoring crowd.
“We have much to celebrate, but I urge you all to remember there is still much more to do!” Helios attempted to shout, trying but failing to speak over the constant cheering of the crowd. “But we can rejoice in the fact… THAT HIS WAR WILL SOON BE OVER!” he then announced charismatically and ecstatically before his highly jubilant crowd, deliberately lingering his speech to reignite the cheers, having to raise his hands under the most joyous of grins while he attempted to calm an over eccentric crowd. “But we do owe it all to the brave men and women who stand before us,” he exalted, “and to those who don’t,” he added, looking out to his weary army before moving his eyes to the civilians, “to never let this ever happen again.”
His voice deepening to signify concern while the warden Adria and a few of her own soldiers pulled Midas from the prisoner carriage upon heavy gold encrusted chains, littered with sharp ivory spikes turned gold, reflecting the light of the sun as his very presence among the townsfolk brought cold chills to a suddenly silent and spineless crowd. Tugged and pulled along by the spiky armored knight, who kept her helmet on and her face anonymous from the crowd.
“MIDAS!” Helios shouted with emphasis to his old college and current arch-nemesis. “We were merciful with you the last time,” he announced while Adria and another two hefty soldiers forced the former king down to his knees, easily subdued to the ground due to the spiky pressure of the metal thorns abundant along his arm shackles. Zephyr stood in position behind him with a fixed arrow drawn and aimed at Midas’s back, ready to fire it, should Midas attempt to stand up or resist. “We won’t be making that mistake again,” Helios declared. “Take him away!” he ordered.
The spectators all applauded Helios’s condemnation with their own steady decree of ‘boo’s and shouts, hurling rocks at their former king as he did his best to tuck in his face and ignore them. Left defenseless as those stray rocks struck against his chest and deflected off his two shoulder blades, unable to block any of them while both his ankles and wrists remained chained.
Next he was dragged away, passing me upon my slow entrance into the palace. The madman’s eyes locking with mine as he was dragged away. “Protect our family,” he whispered to me with a trembling but determined voice of concern. Three powerful words stopping me from any further travel, my gaze dumb and confused in both shock and failure as I struggled to iterate any comment back to him. I could only stare and watch Adria slap him in the head as she and her guards wrestled to push him down and past me without further incident.
“You have no idea what your queen is capable of,” he vented to Adria, the same dire seriousness and conviction in his eyes as tried to turn his head and look to his aggressors as they all dragged him without care. “My wife is the key. You’ll see!” he shouted defiantly towards me again, elevating the already angry and maddened temperament of all three guards as he was then struck by the blunt back hilt of a crude carving blade Adria had pulled out, dropping him down into a debilitating slump just shy from walking on his knees. “She’s the key, Kya!” he verbalised backwards towards me as the guards continued to force him downhill towards the lower tunnel entrance.
I was left wide-eyed and stunned by what I heard and saw, stuck amidst a multitude of enclosing fans and friends upon the sidelines all around me. I had no choice but to shake off his words and retreat into the palace with the rest of the royal entourage and flooding noble dignitaries, moving to the sides of the palace hallway just shortly prior to the spiral staircase that led up to the Sunspire.
I was still trying to overcome the crowds’ loud chants and their echoing applause – the sounds greatly dampened by the thick sandstone walls.
“You’re one of theirs now, Kya,” Camilla then said to me, coming out from behind me as she put a hand on my shoulder, a fake smile on her sombre face just after hearing the mad rants of her disgraced husband. Perhaps holding onto me to brace herself after the painful limp she must’ve undertaken to make it all the way up the stairs and catch me. She attempted to wipe one stray lingering tear from her eye before I was to look back and catch a glimpse of it.
The clearly distraught wife of Midas was trying to feign happiness to fit in along with
all the others celebrating as she had to brush off the grim news about her husband and his upcoming fate. For the first time since the Caverns, I got a quick chance to glance down at her inflamed leg.
Her left leg was quite swollen and rough, noticeably bigger than her right. It had been braced by two tied wooden stints, which protected the sore red area of the skin immediately around the huge gold handprint grip that was stretched virtually around the entirety of her thigh.
Her right arm was far less dramatic though, having been horizontally lifted into a typical cloth sling in order to relieve the weight of the hand print pressed across her wrist. And although I didn’t believe Akoni at first when he’d said it, after just one glance upon the wrist, I saw the delicate gold hieroglyphic circuit markings that were embedded into the skin. Only to me they looked much less like a circuitry pattern and more like the runic symbols that were carved into each of Camilla’s gateway stones.
“I was told about your banishment,” she said to me sympathetically, her hand against my shoulder, stopping any ability to move as we both stood still and merely allowed all other dignitaries to pass by us. Her follow up sentence lingering as she seemed to want to wait for an ideal time to talk in between the small clusters of technicians and officials who were marching towards the spiral staircase that led to the castle’s southern top spire.
“Listen, your queen has a lot to deal with right now, and the stresses of leadership might not have Milena in the right mind frame... So, please, just lay low. Ok?” she said, squeezing my shoulder in reassurance. “You give me a little time, and I promise I’ll find a way to overturn her ruling,” she then pledged to me, although saying it softly enough so that no others could overhear it. “For now you just need to stay out of sight and refrain from going anywhere too foolish,” she stated, my head nodding slightly in acceptance of her request as I kindly smiled in genuine appreciation of her help. “Starting with the Sunspire,” she then lightly joked, turning me around to face the other way from the castle’s stone stairs and wall.
“Thank you,” I responded back, the sincerest gratitude I could offer, given the timing, truly touched by her level of care and compassion. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me,” I added “Would you like some help back to the infirmary?”
“No, no. I’m ok,” she politely refused. “It’s really not as bad as it looks,” she added, trying to mask her countless troubles with just a short and quick smile. “Just come find me a little after the Sunspire is fixed, alright?” she stated before turning herself around and exiting the house, slowly limping back down each step outside the palace and disappearing into the chaos of the enthusiastic civilian crowd.
And so, once again, I was left there in the empty hallway of my home all alone, the last of the dignitaries passing me as they went up the stairs while I just stood there quietly watching them, uncertain of where exactly to go and what to do. Instead rather just turning to stare at the walls, over towards the artefacts and oil paintings of older days – the countless souvenirs that acted as reminders of the intense labour and hardship that existed before night ended for all within the Borderlands.
Suddenly, I had nothing but time to think about my current situation and, because of it, I was starting to feel very scared and sad. At first it was just confusion, wondering why Midas said ‘our family’ instead of ‘my family’, and whether that one misspoken word meant everything or nothing. But then following further along the thoughts of family, I became incapable of doing anything other than standing there thinking back to every happy moment and memory I had in the palace.
The sadness of it had brought tears to my eyes, but it wasn’t because of the fear about what might come next, nor the fact that the queen expected me to leave, but prominently because she hated me enough to actually wish it of me. And how I was supposed to explain it to the others.
I fought back tears as I thought about what I would say, staring at depressing antique ornaments, left on the nearest wall frame, to cover my tears from anyone who might enter the hallways. All I could think of was how I might become just like those rusted old farming tools whose very use had been long forgotten over time.
It was clear to me I had grown up considerably upon my ludicrous week-long adventure. I was stronger and more capable than ever, but I was never going to be happy unless I was beside those who truly cared about me. No amount of wealth could ever make me feel complete without some sense of family, even if members of that family hated my guts.
And that’s when it dawned on me that the angels above had granted me everything I had ever had wished for: a chance and excuse to escape the city and my life as a servant, and that the second I got this wish, I didn’t want it anymore. I immediately wanted something else – the irony that all I wanted now was for all of it to simply be undone.
The differences between giving someone what they want and what they actually need were far easier to differentiate in retrospect – perhaps that’s the reason we are not meant to receive everything we want in life. As for me, despite all the ups and downs that came with being a house servant on a limited income, it was a part of who I was and, remarkably, something I was going to miss.
I wanted to look on the bright side, tell myself that there was no tonic that could treat the sickness I felt when I looked at Ebony and Arlo together. It was a pain that could only go away with time, and that meant walking away was better than staying and watching my one true love marry another.
When I saw them try and hug earlier, it felt like I was back in the training pits with Ebony all over again, being beaten down as she kept herself on top of me. But the reality was that this time it was all my own doing; Ebony was winning because I was never truly in the race. Unlike her, I never had the courage to speak up, and therefore never got the chance to find out what might have been.
“What’s wrong?” Anara asked, appearing behind me, somehow sensing my sadness despite my turned back.
I turned to face her, knowing full well that telling her about my possible banishment would be the hardest thing I would ever have to do, so I decided to take a note out of her book and try a little white lie instead. “I’m going leave the Capital Anara,” I told her.
“Oh,” she said, sounding cautiously cheerful. “Cool. So where are we going then?” she asked, ignoring the serious expression on my face.
I took a moment to respond, trying to think of how I could word things delicately enough to spare her feeling so that she didn’t feel like I was abandoning her.
“No. I’m going alone this time,” I eventually stated, unable to think of how to put it any better way, hoping my honesty wasn’t too harsh as I inspected her face, trying to read how badly I might have slammed that sledge hammer into her heart.
“What? Why?” she chuckled with a silly disbelief, caught off guard, seeming more dumbfounded than anything else.
“It’s time for me to grow up is all,” I said. “I mean you’re all grown up now, how much longer can I stay here as your maid?” I lied, trying to make my excuse sound believable.
“You’re my friend not my maid,” she said to an obvious offense. “I don’t understand… What’s changed?”
“Nothing, I just, I need to make a life for myself, and it’s not something I can do here anymore,” I lied.
“That’s absurd! What is this really about? Just tell me… Is it my brother or my mother? You give me five minutes with them and any problem you think you have will be fixed,” she fiercely and sternly announced, her words spoken outwards loudly and proudly like that of courageous warrior. Although, to the people passing by, it sounded more like the stubborn words of a spoiled brat.
“It really is my own choice,” I added, trying to calm her.
“Yea, why wouldn’t it be?” she quipped back to me, both unimpressed and somewhat hostile.
“I have to make my own life now, instead of just sharing yours,” I said in fluster, still trying to persuade her but no longer sure if what I was saying was
helping or simply making matters worse.
“Kya, you don’t have to leave to make yourself a new life. Tell me what you want to do and I’ll help you get it here,” she pleaded. “Don’t leave me here alone with these fools, please,” she begged, her eyes surprisingly desperate. “At least let me come with you.”
“Anara, you’re not going to lose me – you can visit me. But you are a princess, and your mother would never let you come with me.” I tried to reason with her.
“Then you shouldn’t go. You belong here. Just stay.”
“I can’t.”
“Please,” she persisted.
“No, Anara. I physically can’t… I...” I foolishly divulged in exhaustion.
“Why not?” she pressed, determined to find out the truth.
“I’ve been banished! Ok?” I spat out in a loud confession, putting my hands on my head in defeat, ashamed by how poorly I’d planned telling her.
I already knew full well how devastated I was about to make her. My own words cutting through Anara like a sharp knife, the instant mix of shock and guilt I could see manifesting across her pale bewildered face. “Listen to me,” I said, grabbing her arms.
“This isn’t about anything you did, ok? I chose to go on our adventure. And I’m thankful for every moment we shared together because of it – I honestly regret none of it,” I told her, sensing the shame and blame she was putting on herself for what was about to happen to me. “And you are all grown up now, and I couldn’t be more proud of you. Really, we’re both going to be just fine.”
“I don’t care,” Anara snapped back, pushing me out from her arms, storming off past me. “Just give me five minutes,” she said only to race towards the spiral staircase.