The Secluded Queen, page 7
I guess this is my opening to make an excuse and get out of here. She had to keep herself from gagging as the soiled bedding was removed, the smell of hot vomit potent and stinging. “Um, well, I have a landing gear to finish putting back together, so...”
Myra barely glanced her way before refocusing on the man who had killed her soul. “Hrm? Oh, yes. Okay. Thank you for coming.”
Gem hurried from the room, burying her bitterness towards Myra deep within her heart, in an emotional lockbox she had created to maneuver trauma like this. She glanced at the time on the wall and nearly died of a panic attack when she realized she had less than an hour and a half to prepare for her date with Cory. But, after much turmoil and internal conflict, Gem decided to honor that date, which turned into a night she would never forget.
Chapter 5
A Settler pulled the guy line tight and hammered its anchor into the ground beside his foot. The large canvas tent was finally erected—to be used for supply storage. He wiped his sweaty brow and fanned his face with his hat. This part of Virtice, though decided on as suitable for a new Great City, with plenty of water and fertile land for farming, was humid and miserable. But he had sworn away the comforts of life in a Great City, with high hopes to earn his fortunes as this new city, one they were creating from nothing, grew. The descendants of the original Settlers of the Ten Great Cities were wealthy and powerful. Their ancestors had once set out just as he was now. The risk of death while banded with the Settlers was real, but the rewards were, at the moment, well worth it.
A beautiful Settler ducked beneath the guy line he had just secured, her eyes large, bright, and intense. She smiled at him when she passed, and he couldn’t help himself watch her leave.
Smiling, invigorated by her beauty, he took a drink from his canister and returned to work. Saws in the distance filled the air as other Settlers cleared trees for more tents, the rumble of utility mechs moved supplies, and his hammer created its own song to add to the production symphony. There was an energy in the air, being a part of this small exclusive group, all motivated and working towards a common goal. The comforts of Great City life notwithstanding, he had never felt so happy while living in his old hovel of an apartment in Atlantis. He was doing good, real good. He was providing a service to all of humankind by risking his life with the Settlers. There was a deep satisfaction tied to this effort that was difficult to put into words. Overall, he felt glad to be there.
But his happiness was short-lived, because as his hammer fell for the last time, he heard a woman scream. Purple flashes of light erupted all around, blinding and disorienting him, and he covered his eyes to shield them from the bright, magical eruptions. When he dropped his arm, an elf on the back of a unicorn stood before him; arrow knocked, string drawn, aimed for his chest. The elf was a deep red color, indicating his blood lust. Then he loosed the arrow, which whistled a song of death as it flew, then cut into the Settler’s chest and heart. As he fell and the world turned to black, as the coldness of death took him, as his heart beat its last excruciating beats, he saw the beautiful woman who had smiled at him only moments before get gored by a unicorn. Her eyes met his; they reached out to each other, though never touching, and together, they left their lives behind.
In the dead of night, King Laexor sat up, gasping, drenched in a cold sweat. “The Settlers! The Virtuusians have massacred the Settlers!” He tried to wipe the sweat from his brow, but it was no good, as his arm was also saturated.
It had been several weeks since Ambassador Traelic had left with his declaration of war, and Laexor had ordered to give the Settlers whatever resources were required for their courageous mission. They were an exclusive group; they only allowed the finest of adventurers with verified family histories and skills that contributed to the immense task of forcing the wild to conform to human needs. It was not uncommon for those bold souls to die en mass or to return beaten down, scarred, and defeated. This was Laexor’s motivation behind giving them what they needed, to increase their chances of success. It had been so long since the Settlers had amassed enough members to move again that only a few seasoned veterans remained, some of whom were septuagenarians. They would need all the help they could get.
Queen Myra had sat up alongside Laexor, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Laexor had sat up babbling about the dead and gone every night during this particularly harsh spell of madness. She was irritable and annoyed at his night terrors and had half a mind to whack the man up the side of the head. But his eyes weren’t glazed over like they had been these long nights, but were focused, and wide as saucers. He was no longer in the diseased trance, and what he said had sent chills down her spine.
He could not have known we lost contact with the Settlers.
He gripped her hands, and she had to fight the urge to pull away. Laexor’s cold and clammy skin was borderline repulsive, and her unsatiated longing to have her husband free from this disease added to the discomfort. “Myra, oh by the Mother Myra. They’re dead! The Settlers are all dead!”
It had only taken a few days to track down The Settlers and behold the ugly truth: death and carnage. Bodies left unburied and exposed to the things of the forest. Laexor had insisted on traveling by the sky while the ground deployment combed the woods so that when they found the massacre, he could pay his respects.
Though he knew what he would find, to behold it with his eyes was extremely painful. The Beasts of Rhea had spared no one. The tents had been burned, with many still trapped inside them. But what was most gruesome was the precision of the killing, the exactness of it. It was horrific but relatively clean, as if this hadn’t been a colony of humans but a wild pack of hogs to be put down without feeling. The man from his vision—that Settler, who had felt so much pride in his calling, was lying face down in the weeds behind one of the burned tents, hammer still in hand, the other outstretched towards the woman he had left the world alongside.
Laexor gripped his hourglass pendant and turned about in the carnage. The people will surely demand revenge. The Beasts of Rhea had premeditated this attack. He had zero doubt in his mind about that fact. Their goal was to massacre The Settlers, the news of which would excite his people enough to go to war. To demand war, to eagerly send their youth into battle.
Myra’s pleas to Ambassador Traelic rang in his ears as he walked amongst the dead, her warnings of mass death on both sides. But she had been wrong at one point. The Virtuusians had already gone to war against humankind, and while Traelic had mocked them, they had been preparing.
Even Myra would support the war after this.
He turned to the men who also walked amongst the bodies with the same dazed look as Laexor had. He raised his voice so that all could hear. “My dear friends, we have two objectives. First, all are owed final respects, which shall be paid. Let us bury these brave souls now so they can rest.” He knelt to close the eyes of the woman he had seen in his vision. “Second, we find the beasts who did this... this... atrocity! We seek vengeance!” The men muttered in agreement. “These heartless creatures will know fear!” He ripped his sword from its scabbard, the blue sapphire flashing as he did so, though there was no light nearby to reflect off the marvelous gemstone. He thrust it into the air, “Nurtia, be our guide!”
Then, they all set about digging graves. Laexor insisted on wielding a shovel himself, though the military mechs, giant contraptions on two legs or tracks, had excavation attachments that cut a hundred graves to his one. But he insisted, even when the rest of the graves had been completed, to dig one by shovel. It was painstakingly slow, his back aching from being bedridden for so many days, and sweat burned in his eyes, but he had to pay his respects. The man and woman, who were holding each other in death and waiting patiently for this grave, needed his sacrifice. I wish for them to understand the importance of their lives to me. Though I did not know them personally, I want them to feel respected by their King. He carried the body of the man from his vision single-handedly. He dropped heavily to his knees before sliding the slain Settler gently into the hole he had just dug. Then, he did the same for the woman. He used the shovel to fill in the soil around them, then knelt and offered a prayer to the goddess Nurtia. His skin prickled with the eyes of the dead as he prayed, and upon completion of his offering, he discovered the military men who surrounded them had felt the eyes as well.
He had been the last to finish the task. While he dug, the men had gathered roundabout while Laexor’s shovel cut the earth—to witness the sacrifices of Good King Laexor. When the King painstakingly rose to his feet, he turned silently to board the RAM, amongst eyes of approval from both the living and the dead.
He did not need to command his men again. They boarded their mechs, a search party forged into a hunting party.
The RAM engines screamed to life as Laexor settled into his chair, fingering the sapphire on his sword’s pommel and murmuring. “Traelic and his kin wish for war? So be it.”
Several days later, in the direct middle of the Great City Atlantis, Laexor stood over the commander of the Virtuusian force who had led the massacre of The Settlers, blade bared. The steel gleamed in the high noon light, the beautiful edge reflecting the terror on the elf’s face. His people surrounded them, all pale-faced and fire-eyed. They demanded blood, and this elf would not have enough in its veins to satiate them. His blade sang and felled the creature, and his people cheered. Laexor raised his sword, the elven blood dripping from the polished Damascus steel.
His eyes then met Myra’s, whose disapproval was evident. Disappointment and tears glistened on her face as her words to stay his blade had failed. His young boy Raktor was also with her, gripping her hand so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He had black hair, which made his face look even more pale. The boy was very large and physically strong for his age. Laexor had insisted that Raktor be present for the execution so that he could learn the harsh duty of kingship. The boy looked as though he was sick and was sobbing.
Myra turned from her gore-covered husband, wounded deeply from his betrayal, pulling the weeping Raktor along with her. “Raktor, stop that crying and come along! It wasn’t you who died today.” Laexor had chosen to answer the bloodlust of his people rather than heed the warnings of his loving wife. It had not been long since Laexor had been covered in a different type of gore from his debilitating illness, and she had been loyal to him for weeks and weeks. Only days after his recovery, Laexor had already betrayed her loyalty.
I had remained by his side. I had stayed loyal to him. All I asked of him was not to kill, to not swing that dreadful blade, and he wouldn’t honor that single request. After all that I’ve done for him! Now, he will get his wish: a destructive war filled with casualties beyond imagining.
From the sky above, shining scales caught her eye.
A dragon above Atlantis! The Mother save us!
The creature had moved from its apparent cover amongst the clouds and flew East toward Pillar.
Myra knew that once word reached Pillar, peace would become a forgotten memory, a relic of the past. Once that Beast of Rhea could notify the rest of Pillar about the public execution that had tainted this day, Virtice would never be the same again. There was no chance of peace now. The icy fear of what awaited them filled her veins, raising her hair on the back of her neck.
This is all your fault, Laexor. Forever, you will be known as the King who started the endless war.
Chapter 6
Over the next week, under the guise of grieving, Veronica planned her escape. She requested extra meals daily and saved what non-perishable items she could for her journey. She studied the map of Anatolia intently, memorizing the path she planned to take from Castle Myra to The Forest of Patara, while at the same time marking the map to make it seem like she was planning to travel north to Gordion. Patara was closer than Gordion, but nonetheless, it would be a long journey indeed.
She placed another loaf of bread smuggled from her brunch into the bottom of her wardrobe and covered it with a folded blanket. She now had enough food stored to sustain her for a few days, no longer. She would need at least double this amount to make it to The Forest of Patara, and that would only be possible on the strictest of rationing. She was extremely nervous about her terrible sense of direction while traveling to Patara. She knew she could get easily turned around on her journey, which could spell death for her. To better prepare for this, she had taken time each morning and each night to study the location of the sun as it rose and set at that time of year, in relation to true north and south, so that at the beginning and end of each day she could reorient herself in the southern direction she needed to travel.
She was planning on living at the cabin for the foreseeable future. While there was a risk of her father finding her there and informing the High Council of her location, she was betting that he was now wealthy enough to have since purchased finer properties and wouldn’t visit this one often, if at all. Edward had purchased it for her before he died, which lessened the odds of Lord Amount dropping by. Veronica wished her father had fond memories of the cabin as she did, but Lord Amount was sentimental about his money and nothing else. He was a selfish man, and Veronica was not fond of him.
Suddenly, a knock came at her door. I told them not to disturb me, yet they still came unannounced. They do not respect me as Queen. She did a quick check in the mirror, then called out to the visitor, “You may enter.”
Veronica was surprised to find that it was Sir Philip, a man she didn’t see often. He looked sheepish and apprehensive to be in her presence. “My Queen, I beg your pardon, but Lucilla of the High Council requests an audience. She wishes to meet you in the Great Hall.”
Veronica scowled. She had no intention of meeting with that conspiring, hateful old woman. The memory of Lucilla openly disrespecting her during the Emergency Oration, though it had been a week, still weighed heavily on her mind. “Inform Lucilla that I decline her request for an audience.”
Phillip looked shocked. “But my Queen...”
Veronica sighed. “I will not meet with Lucilla.”
He went pale and swallowed, trying to form a solid reply, but Veronica would not have it. She felt emboldened and powerful amidst her escape planning. She knew that no one suspected she would try and escape the castle and that by doing so, she would ruin any and all of their devious plans to marry her off. Their goals to control the kingdom through a marriage would be thwarted. Meeting with Councilman Lucilla would only jeopardize her escape attempt. She turned her back to Phillip and spoke into the wardrobe. “Leave me at once.”
There was a moment of awkward silence, and then the door closed quietly behind her. She let out the breath she had inhaled to puff out her chest. In actuality, she was curious about what Lucilla wanted to speak with her about, but the curiosity was not intense enough to outweigh her hatred towards the old woman. Councilman Lucilla had been her bane since she was first introduced to King Edward, and she had dogged her every step of the way. She doesn’t deserve to meet with me whenever she chooses. I am the Queen! I will meet with her on my terms and not a moment sooner.
She sat on the edge of the bed, creaking as she sank into the mattress, and blinked some tears away. More memories—of what had been and the pains from what could have been—invaded her mind. That conflicting memory of when she had been first introduced to Edward manifested in her mind’s eye. It was a sweet memory, though tainted, and whenever she thought of Edward, the tears came, no matter what she was feeling. She could be enjoying a peaceful sunrise, randomly think about Edward, and then find herself still enjoying a peaceful sunrise, but now with tears running down her cheek. It was irritating. It was embarrassing. It was tiresome.
Will I be a teary-eyed crybaby for the rest of my life, or will the tears eventually stop coming?
Do I want them to stop coming?
Suddenly, a commotion began outside her door, and Veronica could hear Sir Richard arguing with someone; though try as she may, she couldn’t make out what was being said. The entrance to her room burst open, slamming against the wall, and Veronica jumped with alarm. Councilman Lucilla, hands clasped in front of her, stood in the doorway with a look of distaste on her face.
Behind the woman, Veronica could see Sir Richard being held back by four burly members of the Castle Guard. He shouted angrily at his oppressors and Lucilla, spittle flying from his mouth with every syllable. “Now see here, Councilman! It is my solemn duty to guard our fair Queen, and no one shall enter without her express permission!” He smashed one of the castle guards against the wall, freeing an arm, but was restrained once more by another guardsman. “Unhand me, traitors! Cowards! Your duty is to the Queen!”
Veronica’s heart quickened and felt like it rose into her throat. Lucilla turned and scowled at the restrained knight. “Do be quiet, Sir Richard. You do not need to guard our Queen as she is in no danger.” She closed the door, stifling the yelling from Sir Richard and leaving Veronica alone with her.
Lucilla disdainfully looked Veronica up and down. “Do you always have such bad posture? You are our Queen. You should carry yourself as such.”
The initial shock of Lucilla’s entrance was beginning to ease, and Veronica’s wits were returning to her. “Did you assault a member of the Royal Guard and trespass in my bedchamber to teach me a posture lesson? Or do you have something meaningful to justify this insult?”
“My dear Queen, I need not a reason to speak with you. I go where I please.”
What a pompous old bag. “You will not come in my bedchamber as you please. I am your Queen, and you will show me proper respect.”
“Ah, interesting word choice, Queen Veronica: proper.” She began pacing the room, hands still clasped before her, eyes forward. “You wish to receive proper respect, even while rebelling against the High Council’s desires to have you married, which is, coincidentally, the proper way. It is as if you were afraid of losing your power, a power that you only control after our King Edward’s premature death.” Her eyes glinted mischievously. “The people will wonder, of course, if you were behind his demise.”
