by S. K Munt
That didn’t surprise me at all because it was exactly what his democratic daughter had had to say on the subject already. Yet, despite the fact that I had shared in their suspicions not long ago, it didn’t change the fact that it was the word of four people against someone that hadn’t even bothered to defend herself- four pious people against one black-winged monster! What kind of idiot would doubt her guilt for longer than a moment? ‘I understand your skepticism but let me ask you... if Larkin didn’t go on this killing spree, then who did?’ I asked, confused. ‘Amelia-Rose? Did she then disguise herself as Larkin and then come attack me in my tower room after? Because she was the only other person that was in that part of the castle at that time!’
There were a few chuckles at that- and a few abashed looks sent Shepherd Choir’s way- but President Camden remained stoic, as Ora had warned me that he would be. ‘I do not doubt that Larkin was the one to attack you or your brothers- the charred remains of the harem and the condition you were in earlier are proof enough of that.’ He folded his hands together on the table in front of him and went on: ‘However, we use a different sort of judicial system in Rabia than you do here, and someone charged with the attempted murder of three people that were unhealthily obsessed with her would not necessarily be charged for the murder of a fourth person that was murdered in a different fashion, without first getting to speak in her own defence. As you said: Larkin denied killing him but seemed almost delighted to admit to attacking your brothers, so forgive me for saying so, but something doesn’t add up, your highness. I mean, the crowned prince’s amnesia seems awfully convenient, doesn’t it?’
Not for me! I thought, but I was so thrown by hearing Kohén referred to as the Crowned Prince- by my former title- that I did not get the chance to respond before the shepherd did:
‘I’m sorry… so are you actually accusing my daughter of regicide?’ Shepherd Birch demanded, looking uncharacteristically incensed and I could not blame him. Amelia-Rose was a pain in the ass, but she’d never risk her saintly soul by contemplating murder.
‘No,’ Connor Camden replied. ‘But I am saying that in Rabia, all sorts of things would be considered before blame is laid. The body and scene of the crime would be inspected, the witnesses questioned, and a jury of six shepherds would decide-’
‘You imitate an ancient judicial system in Rabia,’ Elbert Yael growled, ‘one that demonstrates the fact that you have a lot less respect for your people and your shepherds- and even God himself. Things are different here in Calliel; people are good and forthright and so we do not need to put them on trial unless they are accused of something.’
‘Remember what I said about attacking one another?’ I said quickly when I saw Connor Camden’s eyebrows pull together in fury, and heard a few of the foreign leaders titter at Yael’s words. ‘That is exactly what we’re starting to do so rein it in everyone, please.’ I looked back to President Camden. ‘So is that what you’re suggesting? A complete inquest into my father’s death? I’ve already interrogated every single person that was in the castle last night… what else would you have me do?’
‘I don’t know,’ President Camden said sharply. ‘But I do know that there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye and if we were in Rabia, we would be investigating last night’s events from every angle before charging anyone with anything.’
‘Sounds like the people of Rabia have a lot of time on their hands,’ Elliot Bronx said.
‘We do- our society runs so smoothly that we have the time to find and tie up loose ends,’ Camden shot back, and I enjoyed the way that Elliot flushed. Everyone knew that his kingdom was the most disorganised and chaotic of them all.
‘Excuse me?’ my uncle Ewan had been so silent that I’d almost forgotten that he was there, but now he raised his hand, drawing our attention to him and how ravaged he looked. His eyes were red, his skin was waxen, and the grief over losing my mother and father was etched into the lines around his eyes and mouth. I would have looked like that, I knew, but I’d healed my face before the meeting, knowing that I had to look up to the task of being king, and not as desolate and lost as I felt. ‘I don’t mean to downplay the obvious part that Larkin played in this kingdom’s destruction last night, but I do agree with President Camden when he says that my brother’s death does not fit with Larkin’s other attacks. The Banished have been trying to get Miss Whittaker out of Eden all week- so doesn’t it seem plausible that one of them ran in to save her and stabbed Elijah?
‘That makes more sense to me,’ Camden agreed. ‘Why else would Larkin deny it? The charred trail that she left behind her wasn’t something she was going to be able to conceal, so why try to wrangle herself out of just the one murder?’
‘I don’t know, Mr President,’ I said shortly. ‘Perhaps she thought that I was going to capture her and didn’t want to be held accountable for regicide if I succeeded? The other crimes she could plead self defence against perhaps, as you’ve pointed out- but not for stabbing a man through the heart.’
‘An incident my daughter would not claim to have witnessed unless that was exactly what she had seen!’ Shepherd Choir protested but President Camden only sighed.
‘Let’s take all of these ‘perhaps’ out of the scenario and get to the facts: what about your security surveillance?’ Elbert demanded. ‘That will back up or refute a lot of these claims, won’t it? I’ve heard a rumour that you have them.’
I sighed now. ‘We do in the main halls, and it should have captured everything, but unfortunately, the only footage we have is of Larkin bursting out of the harem in a state, and of her then backing into the bust that we had the only internal camera in, knocking it to the floor and breaking it. The surveillance doesn’t have sound so we cannot tell what was said between her and the guard when she raced out, but we can plainly see that she was worked up. As for everything that happened before then, there is no security surveillance of what goes on inside the harem, for obvious reasons, so no, I have no way of proving who started what.’
‘For reasons that are getting more and more obvious as this all unravels…’ Yael muttered, and I felt a ripple of anger wash over me. ‘Who knows what the hell you’re doing to your women in there that’s resulted in one death this week and one fiery escape?’
So we’re perverts now because we DON’T film ourselves fucking these women? My God, I can’t win with these people!
‘Enough!’ I snapped, and all of those heads snapped back to face me again, then my fist as I pounded it on the table. ‘I will remind you that I am Karol Barachiel, descendant of Miguel Barachiel, and that I, along with every other member of my family has sworn to protect the people in this kingdom, not to corner and rape them, and not to falsely accuse them of crimes in order to cover our own sins!’ I raked my fingers through my hair in frustration. ‘Yes, I understand that Larkin of Eden has impressed us all, and no one was more impressed by her than I- a fact that I’ve made obvious over this past week- but over two hundred people saw her sprout black wings and soar out of my window tonight, leaving me for dead beneath her, and that is all the concrete evidence that you should need to make a case against her! She is a dark Nephilim, and the most powerful one that we have encountered in the last four hundred years! She has slain the king, she has attempted to kill my brothers and either intentionally or unintentionally got my mother and the Nephilim security guard that went to her aid crushed as well! She is a murderer, and were it not for our healers, both resident and temporarily stationed, she would be facing FOUR counts of murder this night!’ I stood up and flung out my hands. ‘Yes, I thought that I was in love with her and yes, I begged you to put her on a pedestal for me and yes, she had apparently won many hearts within Eden’s boundaries including my twin brothers’ and your daughter’s President Camden- but can you not see now, as I have, that she was doing so intentionally? That she was using her dark magnetism to draw us all in only to play us off one another all along? That she bewitched us all into her embrace and out of our
senses? I do not doubt that the Banished have been working towards getting her out of here and that any one of them would have killed a member of this royal family if that was what it took to get her free- but she didn’t need an escape- she has had several chances to do that already, hasn’t she? She had the people in this palace eating out of the palm of her hand! But what she wanted was to end this line, and every other royal bloodline in this kingdom, so laugh at me all you want and whisper about my hormonal little brothers, but before you do, ask yourself…is it only the Barachiel family that she has targeted?’ My gaze slid from Yael’s, to Hartley’s. ‘Or did she attempt to disarm other leaders in this room as well?’
My words rang through the room in such a pronounced fashion that for the longest moment after, there wasn’t a single sound. No arguments, no deflection, no blame- just proof that they were all what they’d spent all morning accusing my family of being: human.
Exhaling properly for the first time since I’d walked into that room, I flopped back into my father’s chair and shifted my gaze from Yael to Atticus Hartley. I didn’t have to be as perfect as God was, but I could be king if I held it together and more than that, I deserved to be.
Smiling crookedly, I shifted to get comfortable in my father’s seat at the head of the table and said: ‘That’s exactly what I thought.’
3.
The Wildwoods
Larkin
The animal- the scrawniest, mangiest thing that I had ever seen- hurtled through the space that I had been occupying and then came down as hard as I had, rolling over and over until it came to a bungling stop at the cloaked man’s feet. The man’s face was covered by the shadows cast by his hood, but I heard him gasp and gurgle in alarm as the wolf found its footing and began to snap and snarl at him, causing him to tilt backwards over the rock that he was sitting on. For one terrifying moment, it looked like the man was going to topple backwards and down the mountainside or be snared by the fierce wolf’s jaws, and I felt a sense of failure and despair rain down upon me like stones. I’d sworn to protect that man, and yet he was about to die because I had dropped my guard down in order to take in the sights! What a pitiful leader I’d already proven to be!
‘I’ve got it!’ another man’s voice shouted before I could get up to my feet, and then a broad figure rushed forward, brandishing an axe in a scarred but broad dark hand. ‘Hold still and I’ll-’
‘No!’ I screamed, using what little oxygen I’d managed to suck in to make myself be heard. I was afraid of the wolf and of what it could do to the man- but was slaying it the only option? It was such a dirty, pathetic creature and they were all wearing pelts obtained from wolves that were three times it size, so who was the real predator in this scenario anyway? Certainly not the wolf, which was smaller than any domesticated dog I’d ever seen- a mere pup with massive, matted paws, and a hungry, neglected one by the look of its pelt.
The man with the axe turned to gape at me and in that moment I saw his lack of faith in me as clearly as I saw the menace in the wolf’s eyes as it too swung around to regard me. But I’d bought the wolf and the man a few precious seconds, so I bounced to my feet and swiped the wax paper-wrapped package that Bastien had been handing me out of my guardian’s hands before staggering forward through that nebulous air and closer to the hungry animal.
‘Here boy!’ I panted, tearing the paper off to expose the dried meat within, and the wolf’s nostrils flared as it growled under its breath. ‘You hungry? Go on and get it!’ And then I flung the jerky back into the ghostly gloom that we’d emerged from, further down the mountain, onto the trail and out of our immediate vicinity. The filthy dog took off after the treat so fast that I flinched again, temporarily spooked into thinking that it was going to rush me instead, but as soon as I realised that my decoy had worked, someone had me and was pulling me backwards.
‘Quick- into the tunnel now so that we can seal it behind us before it or any other members of its pack comes back!’ Bastien panted as over the top of him the other man demanded:
‘What was that about?’ The man shook his axe, making the red ribbon that he had twined around the handle jiggle, and that was when I noticed for the first time that almost every member of The Sequestered was dressed as he was, in a navy blue tunic made of flannel. His skin was dark and speckled with darker sunspots around his cheeks and nose, and his fuzzy black hair was turning grey and dry at the tips. He had a huge mouth with pillowy, cracked lips and hard, dark eyes that sparked at me as he went on: ‘We barely have rations to go around as it is girl! That wolf would have added to our stores, but you give it what little we have left and send it on its way?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I wheezed, meaning it, ‘I just know how desperate a creature has to be to come all of this way in search of sustenance, because that’s what’s driven us up this mountain, isn’t it? The will to live?’ Bastien deposited me on my feet and then beckoned to the cloaked man to hobble into the tunnel after us before he and the angry, axe-wielding man began to hurriedly block the tunnel’s entrance from the inside. It was dark and I was disorientated, but my voice echoed clearly as I hurried on to explain as my eyes adjusted: ‘I couldn’t bear to spill the blood of something so tenacious, not after all of the violence I’ve seen in the past week, and especially not seeing as how malnourished that thing was.’ I shrugged. ‘Besides, it was my first wolf encounter. I didn’t want it to end savagely.’ Nor was I particularly thrilled at the prospect of eating dehydrated bear carcass...
‘It wouldn’t have hesitated to spill your blood!’ the man said in that strange accent that was like a rougher version of Bastien’s lilting one, but more clipped than Ora’s rounded Rabian one, and completely impossible for me to place. I sighed and leaned forward to pick up a sheet of iron, helping to barricade the entrance seeing as how they were all clearly afraid that the glorified dog was going to come rushing in after us.
‘Then that would have been its mistake,’ I said quietly, helping Bastien to secure the largest sheet of metal in place by sliding rocks up against the base of it as the old man slipped past us and hobbled into the darkness. ‘For there is no more meat on me or our cloaked friend there to eat, than there was on it. Besides, if I ever do fight a wolf- it will be one that is up to the task and not a scared and hungry puppy.’
‘Shep…’ the man complained, but Bastien shook his head and said quietly:
‘I am charged with the task of guiding her Windsor, not instructing her. She followed her instincts, as her mother had requested, and I am not inclined to argue with either of them- especially not when I deem her explanation for her actions to be reasonable and thoughtful.’ He patted the man on the shoulder as he stepped back, causing the bow and quiver that the hunter had strung over his shoulder to rattle. ‘Sorry, but you’re alone in your ire here.’ Then he turned to me and inclined his head more deeply into the tunnel. ‘Come on child, you’ve thwarted my first attempt to feed you, but fortunately, I’ll get another chance momentarily. Our supplies have been depleted by an influx of new recruits, yes, but enough has been set aside to last us a few more weeks yet so do not feel badly for how you handled that- God smiles kindly upon those that are gracious to his other creatures, and you will soon have a hot meal in front of you to prove that.’
‘Even if they’ve aligned themselves with the devil?’ I joked, but Bastien chuckled and all at once, I felt less uncomfortable in his company.
‘Perhaps we have a few more good deeds to perform before we can hope to be forgiven for that factor.’
‘Perhaps,’ I agreed, although deep down I was sort of hoping that God went on as ignorant of my existence as he always had been- forever… and that hot bear meat looked more appetising than cold bear meat had.
*
The Sequestered had dubbed their second camp Hope Station, and it was indeed a place of hope because it was a place of heat and warmth and light and comfort, the likes of which I’d been starting to think that I’d never experience again.
&n
bsp; It was still rough of course, but unlike the first camp, which had consisted of a bunch of tattered canvas tents that had been assembled inside a shallow cave, the second had used the remains of a subterranean railway station as its foundation, giving it a more established, permanent feel. The tunnel extended on for about half a kilometre into the mountain, dank and cold as the caves in Arcadia had been, but then suddenly it had opened up to reveal a platform and the rusted shell of a train that now stretched in front of it. There were only five aluminium carriages left of that old relic and the seats inside had apparently deteriorated centuries ago, but they’d been yanked out like rotted teeth and replaced with a wall to wall carpet of bearskins and wolf pelts that the residents now slept on.
Likewise, the cold concrete platform had been transformed into a toasty common area due to a surplus of large fires that were burning safely in oversized steel drums that had been scattered around a collection of long, rough tables. Those tables had bench seats attached to them- and so many people were seated on those bench seats that I did not even attempt a head count, and surely could not have managed one due to my mounting apprehension.
Leader, leader leader… the word echoed in my mind, making my palms sweat and face flush as I watched these people watching me. They all expect you to be their leader, but there are so many of them! How is it possible that not one of them is more suited to the task than you are?
Bastien leaned over to squeeze my hand in silent support and I swallowed hard and smiled thinly, nodding to the people as they stood up to applaud me and my less than spectacular entrance. ‘I present to you all, Larkin of Eden!’ the shepherd declared to the room and though I wanted to thump him for exposing me so, I reminded myself that he’d pulled me away from one real wolf, so I should forgive him for throwing me to these expectant human ones. Though this was a terrifying moment for me, it was a prophecy come true for them and if I was destined to fail them (as I feared I was), then I knew that the least I could do was give them this one moment of hope- this one chance to believe that someone wanted to look out for them, and was fated to do so.