Incite, page 20
“And you wonder why no one wants to be around you,” Calix speaks over Amiria’s shoulder.
Kinsey’s top lip curls in response. “Why are you still stalking her?”
“We have plans today, this is our meeting spot.” He touches the tips of his fingers to Amiria’s arm. “Come on, let’s go.”
With her eyes still fixated on the girl and her constantly changing facade, Amiria reaches back, finding the security of Calix’s hand. "Yes, please. Let’s go.” She whips around tucking herself in close to his body, “Now.”
As if evading a predator, Calix hugs Amiria close to his side and walks backward removing them both from Kinsey’s range. His feet shuffle onto the cut stone walkway surrounding the courtyard.
“Never turn your back on a wild animal,” he mutters under his breath, still watching Kinsey stand statuesque with her deadpan eyes locked on him, a devious smile creeping onto her face.
Thirty
After escorting Eve back to Bernard, Stirling crashes next to Ignis in the pile of straw tucked away in the old stables. His new cotton attire folded neatly on a crate, not wanting to ruin them already by sleeping in it.
“So?” Ignis initiates.
“So what?” Stirling replies with closed eyes and intertwined fingers resting on his chest.
“So, how did your date go?” Ignis probes.
“It wasn’t a date. Eve is a friend and I needed help with shopping.”
“Yeah, like how you and Amiria were just friends?”
Stirling’s eyes pop open. Ignoring the pain in his sides he twists to look up at Ignis, “It wasn’t, we weren’t like that.”
Ignis moves his head imitating an eye roll, “Sure.”
“Shut up, Ignis,” Stirling mumbles.
There's the knot forming in Stirling’s chest again. A sensation that has become exclusive to when he thinks of Amiria. It is as if there is an empty hole inside his ribcage. A sinkhole pulling and tearing his heart in two. As if he has lost part of himself somewhere along the way.
Stirling drags his hands down his face in frustration, “I sometimes forget it's been almost two months since we’ve last seen her. I keep thinking she’s going to walk through the stable entrance any minute now and tease me about my mistakes during the races like how I missed the target. Then I remember she’s on the other side of the world. I guess I’m just wishing that I’m going to see her again. I keep hoping one day I’m going to hear someone shout baker boy. Then I will turn around and she’ll be standing there. But with each passing day, it becomes more apparent that it will only ever be a dream.”
“Do you know what I would do if I was Amiria?”
“What?”
“Kick my feet up and enjoy that sweet castle life now that I don’t have to worry about your butt hiding in a cave. Maybe find myself a nobleman, what was that one's name, Calix? Yeah, Calix.” Ignis answers bluntly.
Stirling crosses his arms, pouting, “I really need to find someone else to talk to.”
“You’re expressing your worries to a dragon. This is all on you.” Ignis jokes blowing warm air down on Stirling sending his curls dancing.
He fakes a laugh, his mind detaching as he thinks of what Ignis had said. It is true. Amiria and he were never a couple. They were close friends, and she chose to stay in Wyverna. There is nothing stopping her from forming a relationship with someone.
Isn’t that what he wanted? Isn’t that why he left her behind instead of forcing her to come with him? So, she can successfully live her life without him holding her back?
So why in the end, does it still hurt so much?
Thirty-One
Worn-out shoes barely holding on and bare feet with more scab than skin, march through the dusty streets in a single file line.
Toes drag through the dirt barely lifted by their owners. They periodically stagger and stumble as their person with bounded hands is yanked off balance by a scratchy rope displayed around their neck tethering the line together.
The blood drained from their sunken faces coats the ropes sawing away at their wrists.
The city of Lumierna watches in eerie silence. Hundreds of minds watching, but not a thought to be said aloud. The only sound comes from the clinking of the guard’s armor. The townspeople watch the dragging feet, refusing to make eye contact as their neighbors, friends, and family march past them.
Clyde, sitting on horseback and flanked by two guards Robert and William, barks orders for the bound souls to pick up speed. The line remains at its current pace, physically unable to maneuver quicker. Their blistered toes are already stabbing at the heels of the person in front of them.
Amiria doesn’t know why she agreed to come. She sits beside Calix on a set of raised seating to separate the classes while they gather to watch the public hanging in the town square.
A new set of gallows now with the capacity to hang up to six people at the same time has been erected to accommodate the surplus of sentences. The myth about Stirling and his dragon, how he decided living a life on his own accord even if it's short, was more important than living a long-dictated life, had spread across the kingdom like a plague.
Citizens following in Stirling’s path have been shipped into Lumierna in overflowing carts. People only trying to fulfill dreams and aspirations. Discovering untapped talents lying dormant, snuffed out before they got a chance to breathe. Individuals discover it’s better to try flying and fall than to never leave the nest.
For that short brief moment. You had free will.
They make Stirling out as a martyr. He did the impossible. He rose up to the clouds. He touched the forbidden sky before he was shot down by those who wish to keep everyone grounded.
Would they still look up at him if they knew the truth? If they knew he, did it solely for himself? If they knew he escaped alive and is out there living free? Or is it, Stirling is only an excuse for everyone to act upon desires they already planned on?
She doesn’t want to watch this. Her eyes leave the marching souls whose faces remain uncovered. Everyone here will be able to watch the light die in the eyes of those who tried to guide their own path. She scans the crowd so tightly packed in the square their faces are nothing more than a blur of tan and beige. Cobblestones forming a decorated road of the square leading out into the streets around it.
She watches the two young guards flanking a version of Clyde she doesn't recognize. The pair seem vaguely familiar to her, but she can't place it. She watches as the taller dark haired one walks close enough to brush his fingers against the other guards. The auburn haired guard's fingers reflectively twitch as if to intertwine but then immediately curl into his palm. His dark green eyes cast up to her as if he could feel her watching. Amiria turns her head, pretending she didn't notice.
She continues her visual sweep to the men and women sitting with her. Their facial expressions muddied in a variety of emotions from bored and disconnected to uncomfortable and disturbed. Mixed in with the clean faces is Kinsey. Amiria snaps forward, locking her sights back on the gallows. She is now in an internal argument with herself, what is more unsettling? Witnessing these innocent people being hung or Kinsey’s tilted head and a slight smile as if she is watching a maypole celebration.
A shiver runs down Amiria’s spine.
A woman’s chin is forced up by the rope around her neck. The person ascending the stairs before her tries to suppress a choking sound as the rope pulls back on his own throat. Their feet fall soundlessly as they carry themselves up the steps of the gallows.
The guards line them up. The six nooses hanging tauntingly in front of them, the rope framing their faces like a portrait. They clamp their jaws and hold their chins up as the guards remove the tether around their necks. They are unvoiced, but their act is thunderous.
A muffled sob escapes from somewhere in the crowd.
Tears clean tracks on the woman’s face as the executioner stands behind her. She lifts her chin higher allowing him to tighten the noose around her neck.
Why are any of us here? Amiria wonders. What do we gain?
She touches her own neck thinking about what it must be like to be on that stage. To feel that rope burning against the thin tender skin of your neck. Knowing these are your last breaths, your last thoughts, the last time to look up and feel the warmth of the sun on your face. Would she stand strong for her peers, or would she break down while she counts the seconds until the floor beneath her drops? She shudders at the throbbing pulse beneath her fingertips.
Calix places a comforting hand on her knee. Setting her hand over his she gives it a squeeze. Keeping her breath steady she closes her eyes as the executioner takes hold of the lever. Her face flinches at the clunking sound of the dropping floorboards.
Death has never bothered her. Not until she saw the man get run through with a broadsword in the street. Murdered over the crime of learning how to act. It has poisoned her. The image of his begging eyes for her to help stains the back of her eyelids, but all she had done was run away.
Her stomach churns. “I need to take a walk,” Amiria tells Calix, releasing the tight grip on his hand, still refusing to look at the bodies being pulled down as the next in line wait at the bottom of the steps.
“Do you want me to come with you?” he offers.
“No, no. I just need a moment to myself,” she says, touching his shoulder, her eyes slip back to Kinsey. She stares at Amiria with the same crooked smile and flat eyes. Disgruntled, Amiria hides it behind a fake cough.
“Okay. I’ll see you back at the castle for lunch?” he asks.
“Uh Yeah, yes, I’ll be back by then.” Amiria quickly excuses herself from the stands as the next group is forced up the stage.
Giles stands in the back of the crowd. He shuts his eyes, breathing heavily through his nostrils. The sight of the first group already burned into the back of his mind. The image, a scar like the tattoo on his arm, permanently altering him for the rest of his life.
The way they seemed to float above the crowd as they stood high on the stage with the noose around their necks. They held strong until they vanished from his sight and vanished from existence. Their support ripped away from them.
He can feel a shift in the crowd’s dynamic. He opens his eyes. The movement is minuscule with their shoulders pulled back, everyone lowering their chins to their collarbones, their eyes staring at the person in front of them’s back.
They are bowing.
Amiria didn’t wear anything belonging to the Calvary, not even a weapon on her hip. Nothing but her mauve cotehardie and tights with a gold and lilac ribbon tied in her hair. The citizens recognized her undoubtedly, her face amongst the list of regulars in the market. Even as condensed as they are, the people still find ways to part for her. Stepping back like dozens of opening doors.
She actually misses when she wears her hood up and she has to push her way through just like anyone else.
A face catches the corner of her eye. Her eyes dart locking in on a man who has begun disappearing into the thicket of bodies. It’s her father, this she knows for sure. He is out of his regular Cavalry uniform and is wearing a simple tunic. If it wasn’t for his well-groomed hair, he wouldn’t look any different than the folk around him. No one recognizes him as they do Amiria, and they don’t part for him as he slowly picks his way through the crowd.
Picking up her speed she follows her father through the packed streets. Losing full sight of him, she tracks the glimpses through the gaps in the flood of flesh and blood, like the enemy's mass popping in and out of view in the rough sea.
They’ve turned twice and traveled several blocks. The crowd has thinned out, evaporating into small clusters. Slowing her steps, she hangs back to stay undetected. When the distance between them begins to close she hangs back clinging to the shops to inspect the product.
Only a few blocks away from the bakery, she follows the man who has casted a shadow over her life.
Where is he going? She ponders.
He stops.
Amiria halts in her tracks. Panicked, she leaps behind a grocer’s stand. The grocer cocks his head as she peeks around a crate of potatoes.
Her father runs his hands through his hair smoothing it back and straightens his tunic. With a wild grin, he steps inside a shop.
Ignoring the bystanders' nervous glances Amiria sneaks up to the side of the window pressing her back against the wall. Her thin stature is barely visible as she peeks around the edge of the window frame.
There he is. Her father, the Field Marshal of the Winged Cavalry, is standing in the middle of a spinstress’ home with his arms wrapped around a woman with long dark hair. She pulls back from their embrace. Her face is in full view of Amiria.
Amiria’s heart drops. She has met this woman before. She held the door for her the first time she had visited Giles three years ago. The memory is still so vivid because of the way the woman behaved. The way she looked at her was as if she was afraid of her and not because she was in the Calvary.
With her heart thumping, she glances at the nosey onlookers. She can recognize most of their faces from the countless times she strolled these streets.
“No one is in trouble, go away,” she hisses, waving them off.
They nod with earned respect and carry on with their own personal business.
She peeks back around the window frame. Immediately she regrets her decision. With her face on fire, she practically trips over her own feet as she walks quickly away from the sprintress’ home.
Her father was kissing her. His lips were interlocked with a spinstress.
A marine layer hangs heavy over the Winged Cavalry’s base the next morning. Field Marshal Rey whistles a low tune as he walks up the steady hill to his office. Still whistling he pauses between two waist-high wooden posts. He opens the door to the lanterns mounted on top and carefully snuffs out the flame.
He takes several more paces up the path to his office door and stops. His whistle cut off mid-tune. His senses heightened, listening to his surroundings as his eyes lock on the office door already ajar.
He holds his scabbard with his left hand and takes hold of the gold handle of his arming sword, a one-handed double-edge straight blade.
Pulling the blade halfway out of the hilt he prepares himself for an ambush. Using his toe, he taps open the door stealthily stepping through the threshold.
His eyes, slowly adjusting to the light, scan the room for threats.
“AMIRIA!” He shouts surprised to see her, his eyes still darting back and forth unsure if she is alone.
She stands with her arms crossed behind her back unmoving. She watches as the rising sun breaks through the low clouds lighting the training fields below. The next classes of riders are training for graduation, warming up with sprints across the field. Some veteran riders amongst them are preparing for their busy day with a workout.
Her father secures his sword back in the hilt with a significant click, “Amiria, what in the world are you doing in my office.” His voice is harsh and demanding.
She doesn’t turn around, “The spinstress you visited yesterday, who is she?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about?” His words are steady and firm.
Amiria spins around, “Don’t lie to me!” Her face is as pained as the quiver in her voice, “I‘m obviously aware of where you were. I saw you with a spintress, and if you need a reference to jog your memory. She looks a lot like that picture on your shelf.” She stabs her finger in the direction of the charcoal sketch.
She closes the gap between her and her father by a few steps, “So tell me, Father—Who. Is. She.”
They lock eyes, two predators squaring off, their lungs the only thing moving in their static state.
Her father sighs, breaking eye contact first. “Sit.”
Amiria doesn’t budge.
“I SAID SIT!” he orders, pointing at his chair directly in front of her.
Amiria clamps her mouth shut. With exaggerated movements, she pulls the chair back and sits with her legs crossed.
Breathing through flared nostrils he sits across from her.
Amiria immediately picks up from where she had left off by hounding him with questions, “So? Who is she? Some mistress? Did you sneak off to see her when mother was alive too? Or is she a new fling? How long did you commit adultery?”
“Amiria stop. Stop. Stop talking.” He says pinching the brim of his nose and struggling to remain calm despite the vein popping from his temple. “You’re jumping to conclusions when you know absolutely nothing.”
“I know nothing because you’ve told me nothing.” She throws her hands exasperated, “Tell me, Father, who is she?” Amiria leans forward, her eyes never deviating from his.
“That woman is your mother,” he says locking her dead in the eyes.
“...what?” Amiria says her heart plummeting as if the floors of the gallows dropped beneath her.
“That is what you wanted to know, is it not?” he says, unblinking.
“What do you mean?” Amiria falters, searching for her bearings. She has lost track of her argument. Her eyes search the room.
Her father sighs as if she has soiled his morning, “The woman who raised you isn’t your birth mother. Corliss was my best friend from childhood until the day she was stolen from us. But that was it, we were only best friends. I fell in love with a spinsteress named Arietta. We kept our relationship a secret from everyone except Corliss. The next in line field marshal can not be having a romantic relationship with someone in the lower class.”
With each word spoken by her father, Amiria sinks deeper into her chair.
“Then we discovered we had conceived a child out of wedlock. For everyone’s sake including yours,” he pauses letting the weight drop into Amiria’s lap. “Corliss offered to marry me as a way to protect us and she raised you as her own. She told me nothing would make her happier than to help me.”
