Capítulo 7: 06: Cruel Game
It was rare for Fiore to be worried. While he did often deal with troublesome and stressful situations as head of the Palace Guard, it was part of his job to stay calm and collected. When Addicus Bonaventura died, he personally began the investigation and panned a missive to Lore. Sure, he wanted to grieve, wanted to support her friend through her grieving, but that wasn't his purpose. Even if he loathed to see her in black.
Now another dear friend was taken from him, if in a different way. He wasn't sure if Lore would be staying that way.
Sighing, he pushed a hand through his hair. It wouldn't make sense for Lore to have gone through the main entrance when visiting the temple, and in fact she had informed him she wouldn't be. But he should've been the only one to know. Not only was she taken, but a girl. Although it wasn't abnormal to get married, work, undergo a court martial, and have children before the age of majority, it was the age of majority for a reason. Eighteen. Caelestis wasn't that. In a way, she was still a child, and that worried him only further.
Lore would do her damnedest to protect the girl, surely, but she was pregnant. Her mana was restricted, she was grieving, and it was more unlikely than not she would come to harm. Yet another sigh pressed itself out of him, weighing down on his lungs.
"Captain Fiore! We've found something!"
"Show me," he ordered, quickly following the guard. He was led to an alley adjacent to the temple, then to where a piece of wall had lifted away just enough for something to slip under.
Kneeling, he pulled the object from where it was entrenched in earth. A mask, of wooden make, cracked down the middle as if struck harshly. Thin scratches tremored the soft wood; it had skid into this position no doubt. By grace of the gods or mere happenstance, here it had come to reside. He thumbed away some of the dirt, before lifting himself up amidst the sound of clinking chainmail.
"Get the tracking dogs. Quite the good clue you've found, Fosse. We'll find the Queen and good Saint yet. In what state, I cannot tell."
Fiore's stomach churned with the trappings of hope, a thing that eased his tensed posture. If luck provided, this hope would not betray him; both Queen and Saint would be found alive. He'd make damned sure of it.
Above him, the sunlight thinned by clouds only became more shallow as a deep expanse of gray took the sky. In the far distance, lightning flashed as a storm conquered the sky. A breath of anticipation, then rain fell, making of the earth a scent of growth. Rain was not hateful thing, even as it erased the trail bit by bit. They would have just enough time before it washed away the perpetrators, and Lore with them, to narrow the expanse of the search.
As the man loomed over, the weight of resignation burrowed itself in her bones. Lore had never killed a man before. Rationally, it made sense. It was kill or be killed, and if she didn't make sure it was a fatal blow, one of his friends could use a healing spell and he'd get right back up again.
She knew of this mocking, she knew of the power of the dagger in her lap, so close to her hand ans yet far from her heart.
"I can't help but wonder what your dying breath will sound like."
Lore glared at him, shifting ambiguously so that her hands were closer to the blade. If she was quick, and she was, it would be quick. "What would your leader thinking you if you killed Breacia's Queen?"
"I think he'd be thankful for it, especially if we paraded the corpse of Addicus' favored in the streets. What a loathsome man he was; I almost feel sorry you were married to him." Laughter. Loathsome, effusive laughter.
Gripping the dagger in her lap shortly, Lore lunged to plunge the blade in his leg. Before the shock could even set in, she dragged it through, slicing the artery there. She tore herself from the cold stone at their feet and tackled him as he spat vitriol at her, breaking his hand in her own as he tried to grab his own dagger. Then she drove the dagger on his leg, leaving nothing but a corpse in her wake.
Her hands trembled, but she steeled herself. There would be time to tremble like she was meek later.
"Caelestis, are you ready?"
The girl pursed her lips. "Wait a moment. Let me heal you first." She shimmied by Lore, somehow uncaring of that cruel ring. "Burrowed in skin, shadowed by blood, the first poison was born. But the Sun god denied its cruelty: Poison Cure. Weak Heal. Weak Heal."
Caelestis' hands lit up with each spell, evidently only having the healing one perfected. Even the greatest of spellcasters could not cast a spell without a chant if they had not mastered it.
Lifting herself, her binds fell askew just as Lore's had. "Okay. Two more." She muttered two incantations, then, more loudly: "Strengthen. Blast!"
Of the two, the first reinvigorated them both, and the second... well, the second caused a massive explosion.
The wall of their cage was thrown away in an instant.
Caelestis quickly recited another spell, Summon, this one bringing with it Lore's blade. They traded weapons, and the ring that should have restricted Caelestis' spellcasting shattered with the overflow of mana.
This was good timing, as the group of kidnappers had arrived. There were about 12 of them, though Lore doubted that they were all of the group. Of the rest, they likely hadn't participated in this job. Whichever it was, a small group or one that hadn't bothered, it left them with fewer opponents than she'd have thought.
Lore grinned, this one a feral thing not much different from a grimace. A fight began, lives hanging in the midst.
Lore kicked a man down, breaking his ribs with her foot as she dodged and blocked in the same instant. The clang of metal against metal burned her ears, the risk burned her heart.
Pushing at an angle, her blade sliced an opponents hands. They dropped their blade, giving her just the opportunity to grab the wrist of another. She kneed him down, a few of her hairs flying astray as they were cut. She twisted his arm backward, then stomped on the other hand as she sliced her sword clean through a man's shoulder, luckily not halted by bone. That made four.
Another recklessly charged, aiming for her abdomen. Lore bashed him over the head with the flat of her blade. The rest were busied with Caelestis, who they'd assumed the stronger fighter. A Caelestis who was struggling.
But even with two on seven, Lore didn't find their odds insurmountable. These all had the same blank wooden mask, lesser opponents, and she wasn't weakened by poison and wounded this time. Caelestis' magic coursed through her veins, empowering her blows. That wouldn't be enough, not usually, but Lore had a plan.
Redirecting the mana of the spell through her circulatory system, she pushed it into her sword. A white hot jet of flame suffused three men before refusing her its power.
While pregnancy restricted Lore from using her own mana, Caelestis was a different case.
The remaining four were dispatched in moments, even without the empowerment of the Saint's spell. Lore panted, her lungs agonizing over the exertion. She sheathed the blade and leaned against the cool wall, uncaring for propriety, even as she stood amongst rubble and felled opponents.
"You alright, Saint Caelestis?" Lore said, panting.
Caelestis nodded. "Nothing that can't be recovered from within weeks by my own body, or minutes by a spell. And of you?"
"Just a few bruises," Lore remarked, "nothing worrisome. I'll see if I can find anything." Berore waiting for a reply, she knelt at the side of the half masked man. She removed his hooded cloak, the fabric strangely filthy. There is a tattoo on his neck.
In Bird Empire, it is a tradition to get a ceremonial tattoo once you are of age, to show your righteous origins. Even if these men weren't under the command of Eagle Emperor, it made Lore think of something. Was there infighting in the Empire? Was the Emperor willfully oblivious, was this a matter of choice? Were they acting without his notice... and how would he react when she told him? She bit her lip, mind swirling with these thoughts. But it wasn't good to focus on these ponderings. Rather, the facts.
Men of Bird Empire had kidnapped Breacia's Queen, and the Saint of a god they held above all others.
Exhaustion, of the mental and physical kind, dogged Lore's every step. It pressed down her shoulders with an invisible weight. Caelestis was quiet beside her, shaking hands bruised from an imperfect Blast spell. Her face was guant, even as Lore doubted they'd been missing for more than a third of the day.
They'd found a letter in a mostly barren office. If she hadn't been sure of Andonis' involvement already, the short note almost proved it. Breacia's heirs had a special stamp to be used for underworld affairs. Lore didn't have access to it, and the youngest two royal children were bastards sequestered away in a far off process. Not only were they not allowed it by blood, but they were children.
Had Andonis' not thought of this? Had he not considered her escape if she weren't freed by the Palace Guard? Or was this premeditated, since before Addicus death? The whole situation was suspicious. It left her with an abundance of questions and a drought of answers. It left her with suspicions of the nature of her husband's death.
With a weary sigh, Lore had pocketed the note and they'd left. This little cottage was buried deep in the woods, and the prison had been part of what was an extensive underground portion. In spite of the crude walls, she hadn't realized the presence of rain until she opened the door.
Rain. Did she loathe it? That, she wasn't sure of. Just like so many things now. Like the nature of her own morals as she played with others' mortality.
Caelestis laid a comforting hand on Lore's shoulder, though it felt distant, and started leaving through the one trail through the thicket. It was half buried with autumn's evidence, and leaves crunched and snapped with their every step.
For once, Lore was thankful of her mourning attire. The many layers of shadowy black kept her warm.
"How far do you think they took us from the city?" Caelestis asked.
Lore looked up at the twisting canopy overhead, sparse leaves breaking the dark sky. A few evergreens spotted the view. "I don't know, but it can't have been far. These woods are those just outside the city. Any further and they'd risk the attack of a beast. These woods are clean."
While monsters and wilde beasts were most common far from civilization, it was not unusual to spot them on the outskirts of patrolled areas. It was their hunting ground, where they rested, waiting for an unready traveler or unguarded caravan.
It was silent again for a moment, but was broken again by the sound of movement up ahead. Lore minutely tensed, a brief thing, and was soon again in her half wary state.
"Fiore," Lore breathed, something desperate at the sight of the known, at her friend. A large black tracking dog with a lolling tongue reached up to his elbows.
"My Queen." He breathed, showing much the same relief she was. Even the silken fabric beneath his vambraces was sodden. "Saint Caelestis. You're safe."
"We're safe," Caelestis echoed, uncertain, "but we should go back to the temple. If we don't get back to the temple... I fear the people may speak out against it, regardless of what happened. And it would tell the perpetrators leaders of their failure."
Fiore cocked his head to the side, eerily reminiscent of the drenched dog. "What of the perpetrators."
Lore stared at him, steady with intensity. "We learned two things: they were ordered by Andonis, and the leader of this cohort was from Bird Empire." She pointed at the cabin, distant but still visible through the barren lower tree boughs. "That there was where we were taken. There's a large underground area, if you order your men to investigate it. Which you should." These words were pointed.
The Guard Captain looked affronted. "You think I wouldn't be investigating that?" He shook his head. "We will be. Let's just get back for now."
"As you say, Captain." Caelestis solemnly nodded, as if she were more a harried warrior than a Saint.
Briefly, Lore wondered of the girl's past. All of sixteen, thin and waifish with wrists that would almost leave a coin's width if Fiore were to close his hand around one. An orphan, as was known. An orphan girl of sixteen who followed the bespoke death.
These particularities spoke of a bitter past Lore wouldn't be prying into. Instead, she glanced forward. They weren't deep into this spry patch of woodland, and she could see the city glimmering slightly with the sheen of rain. Her skin felt oddly vulnerable in absence of a veil.
All the same, she patted the hilt of her sword, then curled her lip to grin and bear it.
When Eagle Emperor was invoked as the name of Bird Empire's new head of state, Marina hadn't thought too much of it. A mere handful of years after the birth of Addicus and then Andonis yes, but this meagre justification did not provide that this were a new era, a reckoning of some sorts. She wasn't wrong in that regard.
However, even as she thought little of it, that did not mean it lead her thoughts elsewhere. To her old friend that was Farouq.
She often wondered what each of the birds in past Emperor's titles meant. Some repeated more than others, and a scarce two hadn't repeated at all. With that, the title of the Emperor's right hand too was changed. The Crow Emperor of her time had a Hawk, and the still young Eagle Emperor of her daughter's time had a Crow. But these were secrets kept between Emperor and hand, almost alike to Akagi Empire's myth of Yin and Yang, although that didn't control succession of an Empire.
Shortly after Eagle Emperor was announced, she visited Farouq's grave. For a Hawk, you'd think it a princely thing. But the man much prefered the mundane. While the stone was durable and hardy, beneath a baobob tree the man himself planted, the lettering was squat and ill refined. An understated grave for a man who spent most of his time he himself understated.
When her daughter's husband died, she felt this was the change of an era she'd so desperately wanted to see in the sad handful of decades a human's life was to last. Marina, for all her talent of the language of swords and bloodshed, for all her viscious integrity, was not blessed by the gods with more than a human's lifespan.
While she had hoped to witness the dawn of an era before she died, just as Farouq had so many years ago, she hadn't suspected her daughter was to lead it. Marina was only 18 when Addicus was born.
The Marina of 43 would look back and laugh.
What a cruel game you play, Arachne.
REFLEXIONES DE LOS CREADORES 
Angela_Erdosy
Angela_Erdosy Next up is the Ball arc! That shouldn't be too long either. There were a lot of things I wanted to accomplish this chapter, but I ended up cutting out half of them. They were simply redundant and made the chapter difficult to write, and undoubtedly would have made it difficult to read. Even as I struggled a lot with this chapter, I think I like how it turned out! I hope you liked it too.
Whether or not you enjoyed this chapter that was more harrying for me than anything else, I sincerely thank you for reading! Every person that I get the opportunity to give my work is someone appreciable, just as I hope that person (you) can appreciate the work itself. It's one of the loveliest things to think I'd made a person smile, and that chance of a smile increases with every view, as does the smile of my own. I smiled while writing this. I hope you can enjoy a smile too!(Smiling is scientifically proven to produce happy hormones, a fake smile or not! If I remember correctly, that is...)
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