The Wildest Woods

by S. K Munt

  ‘And the first division is in St Miguel now aren’t they? Taking over with the disaster clean up where your own troupe left off?’

  I nodded. ‘They won’t get back for at least two weeks, even if they leave at once because the earthquake damaged the railway line.’

  ‘I couldn’t move them anyway, the people of St Miguel need all of the help they can get and we need the train back up and running. Damn it. Earthquakes, pox plagues... what’s next- a reprise of the locust song?’ Karol sagged back into his chair again, studying me carefully. ‘Well then, oh brave Guardian of the Third Division, I suppose this mission falls to you and yours now, doesn’t it?’

  ‘What?’ I asked sharply. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well you’re all healthy and well in the third, and I can’t very well take one of the foreign squadrons that are defending Janiel and Asiana’s borders without all hell breaking lose, can I? So yes, I need you and your men to handle this situation as soon as possible.’

  I felt my blood heat. ‘You want to deny my soldiers their break and send them into the Wildwoods instead to tackle twenty vagrants on the off chance that they’re not already dead?’ Translation: You want me to get eaten by a Salt and Pepper Bear, don’t you? You wouldn’t ask the first division anyway, because their rich parents would raise a rebellion!

  ‘It’s the spring, so there’s no better time to send anyone north than now, is there? Besides, you seem rather determined to prove yourself worthy of my respect, so how could you pass up such an opportunity to earn it?’

  I glowered at him because earning his respect was not only impossible, but the least of my concerns. ‘If it was just my welfare at stake I wouldn’t pass over an opportunity to make sure that the people in this kingdom sleep soundly at night... but it’s not. The guards in my squadron have been working their asses off in St Miguel for weeks, and all over the country for months before that and they’re entitled to a reconnaissance. And even if I could deprive them of that right, what point is there of trying to get to the north from here? It’s impossible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Obviously not as impossible as we thought if a wrecked ship can manage to crash there and survive after. Besides, you’re a tenacious little thing- if anyone could find a path north, then I don’t doubt that it would be you. In fact, you used to daydream about doing exactly that.’ He smirked at me, leaning back into his throne. ‘Come on, little brother, where has that heroic, pioneering spirit of yours gone?’

  ‘How should I know that I ever had such spirits?’ I asked testily, ‘When you tell me only that I was a sleaze and a coward?’

  ‘You were more than that before you got your little prick wet. In fact, you and that creature talked about exploring the world in search of places to plant cotton and pineapples incessantly.’

  I swallowed hard, for it was not often that Karol spoke of the old me without scowling, and I was anxious to find some sort of connection between who I was now, and who I had been before I’d gone off the rails. ‘Really?’

  Karol nodded. ‘The Barachiel’s have always suffered wanderlust- ever since Miguel first flew out of paradise, and settled in the place that came to be known as California. Truth be told, I wouldn’t mind doing a little exploring myself, but the tracking device that we’ve got on the fugitive has been transmitting a near constant signal from the coast between here and St Miguel for almost a week, so I was just about to write General Alvarez a letter asking him to head up an expedition to the south before you walked in with your dispatches. Obviously, I can’t go anywhere until the matter has been investigated, and I have no regent to leave here to act in my stead...’

  My eyebrows shot up and a spark cracked against my palm hard enough to sting. ‘You think you’ve got her?’

  ‘Finding her and trapping her are two very different things. Yes, it seems that she’s growing comfortable with visiting this one particular spot, so my chances of trapping her are high if I get the First Division to meet me there and help me to set a net... but no, I won’t have her until her wings have been clipped.’ He smiled cruelly. ‘Or ripped off; whatever’s easier.’

  I winced to here such sadistic words to pass over such pious lips and beside him, I saw Shepherd Choir do the same. ‘Your highness…’ my voice faltered as his eyes flashed brightly. ‘I know that you despise her, and I know that you once considered her to be a threat to national security… but is this hunt for her still warranted? I mean, she’s stayed away for two years now giving us the chance to heal and rebuild, so why are you still so convinced that she craves hurting us more than she craves her freedom?’

  ‘I don’t know what she wants, Kohén, but she doesn’t deserve to exact vengeance or to enjoy her freedom,’ Karol practically growled, and I was very glad that his power was a healing one, because if he’d had mine, I didn’t doubt that he would have pierced me through the heart with a lightning strike just then. ‘She killed the King of the free world and has given the Banished hope that God’s kingdoms can be overrun and she will pay for that. Perhaps you do not remember the family that she destroyed enough to revere it or seek justice for it, but I do, and I will see this matter through until at least one of us is dead, understood?’

  ‘And if it’s your death that comes first?’ I asked quietly, letting my eyes drift from his hollow cheekbones, to his trembling hands. ‘I can’t be the first person to tell you that you look dreadful, can I? Or to draw your attention to the fact that your fixation with her is making you miserable, and if that you do not snap out of it soon, misery might be all that you’ll ever know again? Is that not handing her yet another triumph over our family on a golden platter? Why do that, when you could opt for happiness instead- when you could opt to survive her?’

  He slitted his eyes at me. ‘No, you’re not the first one to point out such things to me, but you’re the first to say it who just happens to be as responsible for my misery as she was so that’s an unpleasant twist that makes me want to take you by the throat and shake you for being so-’

  ‘I don’t know how many more times I can apologize to you Karol!’ I exploded, losing my temper at last. ‘But I have been told enough about what happened back then to understand that you were almost as under her spell as I was, so how can you blame me for cushioning your fall into her trap? How can you inflict so much ‘justice’ upon me, but be left with so much to spare her?’ I shook my head. ‘At least people assure me that I was well and truly in love with the girl, that I desired to make all of her dreams come true and that I was willing to sacrifice everything to make it so. But you- you fucked up for want of one moment’s gratification with a girl fourteen years your junior! So why aren’t you punishing yourself? Or is that what you’re doing, by allowing yourself to deteriorate so?’

  ‘Prince Kohén-’

  ‘It is Guardian Kohén, for I am prince of nothing, and I will not be silenced!’ I snapped at Shepherd Choir without taking my eyes off my eldest brother. He’d lusted after Larkin Whittaker to his own detriment too, so how dare he act like he was superior to me in any way but by title? Hell, Kohl had confessed to me that Karol had even penned Larkin a letter, offering to release her if only she’d come to him first, so what made him the martyr in this fucked up situation when apparently, that letter had been what had caused me to fly off into a jealous rage in the first place that fateful night? ‘They say the pen is mightier than the sword but in this hell hole, the cock makes more decisions than both those and the sceptre combined, and I will not stand here and be blamed wholly for the fact that the Companion system failed the monarchs that enforced it and the poor girls that were sucked into it! Especially not by a man that apparently didn’t have enough Companions of his own, so he sought to use and discard one of his little brother’s underage-’

  ‘You are GOING into the Wildwoods and I don’t give a fuck if you come back or not, you ungrateful, thoughtless little cretin!’ the king roared, looming over me, but I did not back away because I did not fear him, at least not physically.

/>   ‘Tell me something I don’t already know!’ I snapped, pushing him back on to his throne, and because he was so weak, he feel easily. ‘And I’ll tell you something that you don’t know: you cannot, not even by royal decree, force my soldiers to undertake a mission such as this while they are entitled to time off! I will go, because like fuck I want to sit around here and rot like you have, and because I’m certain that a feral wolf will have a better disposition than you do... but if you expect me to take anyone with me, you’re going to pay for it, your highness, in the form of overtime, which will start the day after tomorrow, and continue on until we have returned and have been dismissed, with a guarantee that every cent we earn will be forwarded onto our dependents, along with a pension, should anything happen to any of us!’ I stepped back again, balling my fists around my electric rage, ‘On top of that, know that I will only be taking those that volunteer to go, got it? And that I will reserve the right to deny anyone to partake in this quest of yours if I do not deem them to be physically capable of it. And because sending us into The Wildwoods is as good as a death sentence, I demand all of the guns, swords and food that we can carry in order to protect ourselves with, and if it proves to be impossible to find a passage through The Wildwoods to this alleged colony, we will be pardoned from the mission and you’ll just have to find some other way to accidentally get me killed that doesn’t put a whole bunch of soldiers in jeopardy at my side, understood?’

  Karol surprised me then by crackling out a laugh. ‘That’s the first time you’ve straightened your royal spine to me since you lost your mind, Kohén Barachiel… and it’s impressive.’ He leaned back in his chair, quite at his leisure, and stroked his beard thoughtfully. ‘If only you’d taken such a tone with your whore- you might have brought her to a heel before she could slaughter our father.’

  ‘And maybe if you and our father hadn’t been so obsessed with making a woman heel, you wouldn’t have provoked someone to slaughter him in the first place!’ I snapped, stepping back again, and my brother’s eyes hardened like emeralds hidden in murky caves.

  ‘I agree to your terms, Guardian Barachiel,’ the king said evenly, turning back to his scroll and flicking his hand back at me. ‘But I will not suffer your tone. Report yourself to my guards, or allow them to hunt you down, I don’t care- but you will be whipped for your insubordination this day.’

  The Shepherd blanched as I’m sure I did. ‘Karol-’

  ‘It is Your Highness, Shepherd Choir and I am not being unreasonable so don’t start with me. It is my duty to keep my people under control, and screaming in the King’s face is as good at screaming at God, so the Guardian will receive ten lashings for his lack of decorum and if I am pushed on the matter, I will extend it to twenty.’

  The shepherd grimaced and my blood rushed to my head, but I would not give my brother the satisfaction of seeing my fear, so I balled my fists and asked tersely. ‘Will I be tended to by one of the palace healers after, your highness? I can’t very well be expected to lead men anywhere after suffering ten lashes, can I?’

  Karol did not look at me. ‘You just lashed out at me as best you know how, and now you expect my sympathy, or for me to use my healing ability on you?’

  I snorted, looked at the Shepherds anguished, conflicted expression and then began to retreat. ‘No, I wouldn’t expect that, your highness. That would be something that an older brother would do- not a heartless king, and it’s pretty clear which of the two you have decided to be.’

  And with that I turned and strode towards the guards that were positioned on either side of the door. I did not look back to see if Karol’s eyes were on me or not, but I felt them, and they burned more than the crack of a whip against my skin ever could.

  *

  I was taken to the construction site of the harem for the lashings, and something told me that I was the first to receive a royal punishment there. The Blue Collar workers were dismissed for a lunch break while I was seen to, meaning that there was no one but my guards present to witness my pain and humiliation- no one but Amelia-Rose and Saul-Yin, who both found excuses to slip in: Amelia-Rose to read off my official ‘sentence’ and to pray for my soul, and Saul-Yin as my support person- the one that would help me back to my bed in the barracks after.

  Saul-Yin’s dark eyes stared daggers at the King’s Guard as he strapped my wrists to the posts with leather. ‘How can you do this?’ she demanded quietly, gripping her leather water bag tightly. ‘How can you take home your wages at the end of the week, knowing that they were earned with bloodshed? Knowing that you split the skin of someone that has done nothing to you?’

  The guard was a handsome man in his late thirties, but his expression was so hard that it did not flinch. ‘I usually despise this job, and I go home every day that I’ve administered lashings, sick to my Goddamn stomach…’ he didn’t look at me as he tightened a knot harder than necessary. ‘But I must admit, I expect to take some pleasure out of administering these particular lashings today, Guard.’

  I glanced at his profile. ‘Because of what I did to earn them today?’ I asked, my mouth dry. ‘Or because of whatever it is that you think I did two years ago?’

  ‘Because of what I know you did to our little swan,’ the guard moved onto my other wrist, still not looking at me. ‘And because my family and I are being held here as hostages until she is found, punished for the simple fact that she loved us, and because we loved her.’

  ‘You are being punished for more than that, Coaxley,’ Amelia-Rose snapped then, coming over and shooting me a reassuring look when she saw the horror written all over my face. ‘You are being punished for the fact that you tried to smuggle a third-born child out of the country.’

  ‘A crime that Karol was more than happy to look the other way on, when he was a prince that had something to gain from it- a crime that the old king pardoned, and that the new king tore up!’ The guard looked at me finally, and his pale blue eyes were devoid of empathy. ‘I didn’t smuggle a child out of the country- your brother helped smuggle my pregnant wife out so the child could be legally born in a country with more lenient laws at Larkin’s behest. He traded the right to punish us for breaking a law for that Locust Panacea and a promise that Larkin would come to him when she was freed... but when she was forced to flee this place in order to escape your clutches, he took it all back!’

  ‘What?’ I asked, flabbergasted.

  ‘You heard me. King Karol initially invited us here to celebrate her liberation because we were the only loved ones that she had… but then when things went sour for him, he kept us here as hostages after you deprived her of her liberty: five lives for one. For two years I have been atoning for my own sins by whipping other men that have fathered third-born children and have been brave enough to try and get their families out of here and counting down the minutes until my youngest daughter turns five and is taken from me, so believe me when I say that the only thing that I hate about today is the fact that I only get to whip you, and not the king as well!’

  ‘A King’s Guard should not admit to wishing ill upon his king unless he is willing to suffer the-’

  ‘The king knows that I would kill him where he stands if granted the opportunity, Miss Choir,’ the guard said tiredly. ‘I have screamed it at him more times than I can count. But he knows that I will not follow through on my threats so long as my wife and children live and prosper so he keeps the leash that he has on me short, golden and unbreakable.’ He scowled at me. ‘Much like the one that you used on Larkin.’

  I felt like I was going to be sick, and Saul-Yin’s face was grey. I hated the way she looked at me then- like I was a monster. ‘She was a dark Nephilim…’ I managed to stutter out. ‘She had wings, they say- onyx ones.’

  ‘That doesn’t change the fact that she had a heart of gold, Guardian Barachiel, and that despite everything that you have heard she did behind your back- she loved you every day of your over-indulged life.’ He tightened the final knot and stepped back,
dragging his eyes off me and casting them towards his whip. ‘As all of your people once did- myself included.’

  My testicles tightened at the sight of the cat o’ nine, but my heart seized up at the guard’s tone. ‘You and I knew each other well?’

  ‘I used to stab imaginary monsters in your robe at night in order to give you the peace of mind to sleep,’ his jaw flexed. ‘God help me, I never imagined that you would become one of them.’

  My eyes burned, and I wondered if this was the guard that I could remember from my early childhood. A handsome guard that had given me piggy back rides as his pleasantly plump wife had looked on. ‘I’m sorry…’ I managed through my tightening throat. ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘I know,’ the guard walked behind me, so that I could not see him, and a chill ran down my spine. ‘And I’m glad for that because you don’t deserve memories of any of us- especially her.’

  ‘As soon as she returns, you’ll be free, Guardian, and she will suffer her own punishments,’ Amelia-Rose said primly. ‘Then perhaps you’ll realise how generous the king has been to keep you close by and inside God’s grandest palace, instead of subjecting you and your wife to a whipping as well!’

  ‘I hope she never returns,’ Coaxley said coldly, not looking at Amelia-Rose. ‘Unless, of course, it’s to raze this grand palace to the ground!’

  And then the whip cracked, and I was in such a state of guilt that I didn’t feel the first.

  But by God, I felt the next to the last, and what was worse was that I knew that I deserved to.

  26.

  Libertie City, Raphael

  Larkin Aztaroth

  I had a lot more clothes than I had the right to own, thanks to my darling mother, who’d made a habit of materialising in front of my closet while I was out and stuffing it with the kind of garments that I was supposedly expected to wear as a monarch- just as she had just traded up my furniture- but I opted for a pale lilac sheath dress that had been hand-stitched by our kingdom’s most talented seamstress Riesling, instead. The clothes that Satan had created for me were lovely, but every outfit had an agenda of its own (or rather, hers) and I was in an indefinable mood, so I wanted something that would not make a declaration about my state of mind without my permission. The sweet dress was pretty enough to communicate the fact that I was going to some effort, but not so dressy that it would be obvious that I was going to too much effort, and that seemed exactly right.