Lottery King 8, page 27
“Yes, we will have a long prison sentence,” Lord Riacho said confidently.
“And the longer we sit,” Lord Carlos agreed. “The harder it will be for you to find the balls to do what you said.”
“What in the entire realm gave you the impression that I don’t do what I say I will?” I chuckled lightly like we were having a pleasant afternoon tea. “But before your execution…”
I let my words hang in the air for a long moment like I was willing to negotiate their sentences if they gave me something useful. Not that I would do that even if they hand-delivered every leader of The Rising right now. They would be dead before the end of the day.
“I have one last question for the both of you.” I glared down at the two prisoners at my feet.
Riacho snarled with disgust, and Carlos’ expression was less extreme, so I focused on the cyclops.
“What does The Rising intend to do to the goddess?” I demanded.
Finally, Helena, Gemma, Nyxx, Rune, and Firo seemed to relax, and I knew they had figured out my mind games with the former representatives.
Carlos looked genuinely surprised by my question, but he quickly pulled his scowling mask back into place. His jaw clenched with irritation, and I felt like I was finally going to get some useful information from the bastard.
“Much to my annoyance,” Carlos growled. “I was not privy to that information.”
“I find that hard to believe,” I said with deep skepticism in my voice.
“The local leaders refused to disclose that information to me,” Carlos insisted.
There was so much anger in his voice and on his face, I thought maybe he was telling the truth. His one eye glared off at nothing, and his lip curled back with indignation.
It certainly looked like he was pissed by the insult of not being given such information.
“They would not tell us,” Riacho said. “For this exact reason! They said the king’s representatives were too risky to have such knowledge spread about.”
Riacho spat on the ground, and he muttered in Portuguese again.
I turned back to look at Rune and Firo.
“What did we learn from the messengers again?” I asked.
“Nothing about the threat to the goddess, your majesty,” Rune replied. “The only information we intercepted was a poor excuse of an assessment of our military forces. Very rough, and rather inaccurate, numbers.”
“I provided information where I could,” Carlos said.
I studied his face, and he looked like he wanted to do whatever he could to bring down The Rising leaders who’d insulted him so completely before he was executed.
“But you know nothing of what they’re planning?” I asked.
“No,” Carlos said through gritted teeth.
“While you’re still breathing…” I said. “I would like to remind you both that it is well within my power to alter your sentencing…”
I stared hard at the both of them, and I waited for my offer of leniency to hang in the air like a carrot before a stubborn mule.
Riacho rolled his eyes, and I got the feeling he was done with all of this now. I guessed he was ready to accept his fate, and that was fine with me.
On the other hand, an expression of utter dejection crossed Carlos’ face.
“I assure you,” Carlos growled. “If I had information I could use to save my own skin, I would give it to you.”
“Very well,” I said.
I gestured a silent command for Firo, Rune, Ena, and Kage, and bless them, they understood immediately.
“You will be executed promptly,” I said.
As soon as the last syllable was free of my lips, Firo, Rune, and my shadow nymphs grabbed the two former representatives by their restrained arms. Carlos and Riacho were hauled to their feet.
“Absurd!” Carlos growled.
Riacho hissed and spat like a feral cat, and they both resisted with all their might. It took ten shadow nymphs to haul the pair outside.
“You can’t do this!” Carlos screamed. “I demand a trial!”
“No.” My voice was calm and icily quiet. “As King of the Eternal Realm, it is well within my power to act as judge and jury. Your sentence has been decided, and will be fulfilled momentarily.”
“Will you be the executioner as well?” Carlos snarled with disgust, and it was clear he didn’t think I had the guts to do that myself.
But he was about to learn how sorely mistaken he was.
My security team and soldiers didn’t even need verbal direction from me as we walked outside the tent. The fifty or so enemy fighters who’d been detained throughout the fight were lined up on their knees in three rows at the edge of our camp. They’d been dragged here while my troops worked to secure the camps, and I knew there would be many more prisoners detained at each of the camps, too.
My shadow nymphs hauled Carlos and Riacho over to face the prisoners.
They all looked at the two former representatives with varied expressions of shock and despair or mild disdain and disgust. It was clear to me that at least some of them had hoped the cyclops and caipora might be able to save them from their fate.
“Lord Carlos,” I said with disdain in my voice. “Lord Riacho. You are both sentenced to death by beheading for your many crimes. Justice will be served before all these witnesses. Do you have any last words?”
“A Insurreição prevalecerá!” Riacho shouted up at the sky.
I could only guess at what he’d declared, but about half of the kneeling prisoners shouted in what sounded like agreement. I had to assume he’d said something positive about The Rising, and I rolled my eyes slightly.
“Last chance Carlos,” I said in a quiet voice.
“Kill us if you want, little king,” Carlos said in a deathly whisper. “The Rising is smarter than you!”
My throat burned with rage at the insult, but I forced my calm mask to remain in place.
“Your majesty.” Firo offered me a decorative sword that looked like it had never seen a minute of real battle.
“Thank you,” I murmured as I accepted the executioner’s blade.
The razor-sharp blade would add just a tiny hint of flare to the execution, but otherwise, the event was going to be quiet and quick. These two assholes wouldn’t get much fanfare, and I found justice in that fact.
I felt a rush of Vallia’s magic flood into me. I turned to catch her golden eyes, and she gave me a little shrug like she simply wanted to help.
I gave her a grateful half-smile, and I took an easy breath to prepare myself. Her power flowed easily through me, and I felt like I could have swung the blade with little effort.
I looked down at Riacho, and his beady little eyes bulged with fear.
My sword sliced cleanly through his neck before I could really consider anything else.
Riacho’s mouth fell open as his head rolled off and dropped to the ground. Blood poured from the open wound, and the rest of his body and the grass where he’d knelt, quickly flooded with blood.
“Goodbye, Lord Carlos,” I murmured with all the hatred and vengeance that had been building in me since before the hurricane.
Then I cut the cyclops’ head right off, too. His body toppled to the side a second later, and his one dead eye stared up at me from the ground.
Firo took the decorative sword back from me without a word, and my shadow nymphs began to remove the bodies quickly to be disposed of. I suspected they would quickly be incinerated like the rest of the enemy dead.
“Your majesty,” Rune spoke softly.
“Yeah?” I asked.
It always felt a bit weird to execute someone, and this occasion wasn’t much different. What I claimed about having the full right to make the decisions about their fate was true, and even if it hadn’t been, there was enough evidence to prove their guilt. But still, it was always so bizarre.
I never would have expected to have such unilateral power. I had to admit, though– at least to myself– that it was pretty thrilling to be able to enact justice so quickly and easily.
“The teams will be arriving soon with the first load of evidence from the two camps,” Rune said. “Would you like the prisoners there brought here, or brought directly to the long-term holding facility?”
“I see no reason to delay the process of questioning them all,” I said.
“Very well,” Rune said. “We have some food ready for you and their majesties.”
Rune gestured at my ladies nearby, and I nodded in agreement.
“We should eat before digging into the documents,” I said.
We all moved back inside and allowed my teams to continue the work of interrogating and transporting the detained fighters from both radical groups. The food was nothing compared to Gerald’s fine cuisine, but it was better than the MRE packs I knew the US military received.
“Thank the goddess for magically dehydrated steaks,” Nyxx mused as she watched her dinner be prepared.
“It’s pretty great,” Helena chuckled awkwardly.
We enjoyed our food in tense silence, and I could tell everyone’s minds were still going over what we’d witnessed today. It was good that the battle had gone as smoothly as it had, but war was never a light or easy thing to process. I was very glad Poppy, Dinah, and Ivis had stayed in Orlando. They didn’t have the stomach for this sort of thing.
I could only imagine what it would have done to them to watch that fae’s wings be ripped from his body. The memory sent a shiver down my spine, and I had to force the last few bites of my dinner down. The food had suddenly turned to ash on my tongue, but I knew I needed the calories.
“First load coming in!” a voice called from the far end of the tent.
Firo, Rune, my ladies, and I moved out of the way so a team of ten shadow nymphs could haul in the boxes. Apparently, these two camps had a lot of documentation.
“Is this everything?” I asked.
“This is only from The Rising’s camp, your majesty,” a shadow nymph replied. “We still have the load from the other camp to bring in.”
“Whoa,” Helena breathed.
“Where do we start?” Gemma asked.
“I’d suggest we just pick a box and get started,” Vallia said in a hopeful tone.
“She’s right,” I said. “They all need to be gone through. Let’s get to it.”
Firo, Rune, Kage, Helena, Gemma, Nyxx, Vallia, and I each picked a box, and the final two were taken over by two more shadow nymphs. A specialist investigator who’d been working on this project the entire time came to work with each of us, and translators soon joined us as well. We spread out through the tent, worked through the boxes, and for a while, nobody found anything much different than what we’d already known.
But then I came across a folded map that looked like it was about a thousand years old. It was crumbling at the folded edges, and I almost didn’t dare to pick it up.
I nervously wiped my hands on my pants before I reached in and lifted the map out of the box as gingerly as I could manage. The thing weighed almost nothing, and it felt as thin as tissue paper.
I shook my head, and I thought it was probably going to end up being some useless old manuscript of Koschei’s or something.
“Anybody find anything?” Helena asked offhandedly.
“Nothing helpful,” Nyxx answered.
“I found some more star charts,” Vallia said. “I recognize a few of these celestial bodies… I think I went to festivals for them as well.”
“More of the same, then,” Gemma said.
“There are more boxes to go through,” Rune pointed out. “Don’t give up yet.”
I barely registered the entire exchange because I was so focused on not accidentally obliterating the fragile parchment in my hands. With my elbow, I nudged my box to the side and carefully unfolded the map. It turned out to be a map of the night sky, and it struck me immediately.
The sky was filled with stars and galaxies, some of which I’d recently learned the Eternal Realm names of, and they were all connected by little dashed lines into the shape of a sunburst with one long arrow drawn cutting through the middle like a heart struck by Cupid.
I furrowed my eyebrows at the map because something about it seemed familiar, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure it out. On a whim, I decided to rotate the map around, and that’s when inspiration hit me like a freight train.
I’d seen this shape before, or at least enough parts of it to be able to recognize it now. It felt like that moment in a jigsaw puzzle where the pieces finally started to look like the picture on the box.
“Ooooh, shiiiiit,” I breathed.
“Michael?” Gemma asked with concern. “What is it?”
I couldn’t even begin to answer. All I knew was that I needed to get my hands on the most updated map of all The Rising camp locations.
“Where is the camp locations map?” I demanded urgently. “I need the most updated map. Where is it?”
“I have it here, your majesty,” Ena answered, and she picked up a tablet from the table. “I’ve just added in a new camp that I received word about not five minutes ago. This is the most updated data we have.”
“What did you–” Vallia’s voice fell silent as she looked down at the starburst map with the arrow through it.
She mumbled something in Irish or Gaelic or whatever language it was that she spoke so often when her memories got the better of her.
Ena handed me the tablet with the map of all the radicals’ locations on it, and I zoomed out as far as I could go. It was still illustrated in the shape of a globe though, and it took me several seconds to scan through and make sure what I thought I saw actually did line up.
But there it was, every camp, every celestial event, every battle location we’d been to so far– they all fell into the overall shape of the starburst. If I had two flat maps, I knew I could have laid them on top of each other, and they would have lined up perfectly.
“Oh, my fucking goddess,” I breathed. “Holy fucking shit…”
“Michael!” Gemma said sharply. “Please tell us what you found?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” I said. “But I think it might finally explain the camp locations and the connections between them all.”
Rune leaned over to look at what I had, and then he hurriedly made room on the table for us to spread out the papers for everyone to see.
“Look,” I said, and I pointed at the starburst map and the tablet with the global map of camp locations.
“What?” Gemma asked.
“I don’t understand.” Nyxx shook her head.
“Pardon, your majesty,” Rune said. “What are we looking at?”
“Oh, my goddess,” I gasped. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Um… no?” Helena furrowed her eyebrows at me.
I stared in amazement at my companions. The connection was screaming at me, and I turned to see if Vallia saw what I did.
The blonde woman was staring, open-mouthed, at the two maps, and her golden eyes had that hazy, far-away look about them.
“Rune, what is that a map of?” Helena asked as she pointed at the starburst chart.
“It appears to be another star chart,” Rune said. “But it’s much older than any I’ve seen before.”
“It’s ancient,” Vallia mumbled. “It’s the convergence.”
“The convergence?” Nyxx repeated in a baffled tone. “The convergence of what?”
“All the galaxies…” Vallia murmured, and she finally looked up to meet my eyes. “Michael…”
“You remember the convergence,” I assumed.
Vallia nodded, and then she slipped off her boot and lifted her right foot up onto the table.
Right there, on the top of her right foot and up the front of her ankle was a pattern of freckles that perfectly matched the starburst shape of the ancient star chart.
“What the fuck?” I breathed. “Why didn’t we check that one before?”
“I hadn’t found any charts that matched it.” Vallia shrugged. “I didn’t think it was part of–”
Vallia’s words cut off suddenly, and her golden eyes became unfocused. She went just a tiny bit cross-eyed for a second, and I could have sworn a bit of light glowed out from her like the goddess’ personal representative, Lady Ellia always did.
“Vallia?” I asked with sudden concern.
Her mouth went wide as she gasped with shock like someone had hit her with a low-voltage taser.
“It is linear!” Vallia shouted with awe.
“What is?” Nyxx asked, and her voice was sounding more and more anxious.
“What the hell is happening?” Gemma asked.
“A new memory has just surfaced,” Vallia exclaimed. “I think it’s the oldest memory I’ve ever had. This convergence event was widely celebrated throughout the world, in so many places. It was the beginning event of so many of the celestial festivals I’ve been to over the centuries.”
“This chart looks hundreds, if not thousands, of years old,” Firo said as he gazed at the near-crumbling chart.
“The convergence happened once every seven thousand years,” Vallia explained.
“And you witnessed the last one?” I asked. “When?”
“I believe I was in China,” Vallia explained. “I remember the Yangshao…”
“The Yangshao?” Rune gasped. “Really? Are you sure?”
“Yes, they hosted me during the convergence festival.” Vallia nodded.
“Why are you so shocked by the name?” I asked.
“Your majesty,” Rune murmured. “The Yangshao culture began around five thousand BC. If Vallia was present near the beginning of their time, then the convergence may be returning very soon…”
“Holy shit,” Nyxx gasped.
“What does that mean, though?” Gemma asked.
“Vallia, what do you remember about the convergence?” Helena asked.
“The world surged with power like never before…” Vallia said in a far-away voice. “All the paranormals’ magic was far stronger than any other time any of us could remember before, or since…”
“Rune,” I said. “We need mathematicians on this. We need to have someone calculate the timeline of this position and see if they can line up when the convergence will return. We need to know if it’s coming soon.”
