Chapter 98: Home

Book 2, Chapter 60 - Home

Home at last.

Elizia blinked in bewilderment as an embracing swarm of thousands surrounded her and called out her name. Like she was some long lost family member each and every soldier had recovered.

“…She's alive.”

“The heavens are with us.”

“So Tarmia lied after all.”

Still half in a daze, Elizia pieced it all together. Someone had claimed that she was dead and many had believed it. What of father? Did he believe it too?

Valor snorted and shook his head, slowly trotting his way past the sea. Groom boys were standing at the edge of the swarm, waiting for Elizia's company to dismount. She at last made it through and got off, scratching the starved beast's neck. “Feed them well,” she told a short dark haired boy to whom she handed the reins.

One half of the castle gate swung open, hinges groaning, and crashed against the wall. Elizia flinched and turned at the sound. Emotion swept over her as she saw her father standing there, wide and wet eyed. For some reason, Elizia had imagined a more regal image of her father upon returning. One in uniform with sword at the waist, or maybe something dashing like a full suit of polished armor. Instead, the duke wore a plain shirt with collar laces undone, the collar itself flapping in the wind. His hair was disheveled and beard grown without proper grooming, sharp ends sticking out here and there. There were dark circles under his eyes also.

He ran up to her —still in bedside slippers— and embraced her. Just what she needed in that moment. She'd been too embarrassed to run herself and was glad he came instead. The ends of his beard poked at her neck but she didn't care. She put her arms around her father and was unable to stop the waterworks any longer. She'd pushed aside the pain of Emeria's betrayal for the past number of days, but all of the memories and emotion came back in a violent whirlpool, threatening to spin her around and drag her to a depth she'd never be able to return from.

But her father was there to hold her from drowning. “You're alive,” he whispered.

“Whose daughter did you think I was?” she managed to say in between gasping breaths.

“Mine. And I love you so very much, Elizia.”

“I know.” She had so much to tell him, but above it all, she was exhausted. Any extra strength propping her up slowly drained away with her return to Arcaeus. Not quite home, but she preferred it here to Metsiphon. Elizia followed her father into the castle and went her own separate way to her quarters. A bath was long overdue. Then she would report to her father. And then she could finally let loose the aching thoughts beating at their restraints, hoping he'd find some way to remedy that pain.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Kalin stood before the window to his room, hands clasped behind his back. A lone rider passed through the gates of the walls on a brown mount. The cloak he wore hid thick arms. Rask.

Kalin sat before his desk and awaited his right hand. Sure enough, the ever hardened Jengard Rask climbed to the fortress top to greet his lord before conducting any other affair. But the man that arrived before Kalin was not the Wolf of Metsiphon. Rask came into the office looking a vagrant, his cloak in tatters, his eyes dark and his breath reeking of spirits. In one arm he held his gleaming wolf helm, and in the other a sealed envelope.

“Your Grace,” the griseled man said, voice deep but broken. He placed his helm before Kalin and held out the letter in his hand.

Kalin narrowed his eyes. “What… are you doing?” he asked.

“Handing in my resignation letter. I can no longer be your second, grace. I am sorry,” he said, bowing his head.

Kalin stood up. “You can't! Elizia has just returned. And I—”

“Did she now?” Rask said, managing a smile. “That explains everyone's cheery mood. Good. I'm glad she's well. Give her my regards, would you?”

“Jengard…” Rask was a few years, Kalin's elder. But they'd been close friends since their youthful years, and near equals in combat as well. The larger man, for whatever peculiar reason that he'd never elaborated on, wasn't fond of being called by his first name. Not by anyone other than Kalin. “What has happened to you?”

“The rebels…” he muttered with clenched fists. “I don't have a family anymore.” With that, he bowed once more and turned around to leave.

“Rask. Rask, wait. I… I'm sorry. But—” But what exactly? Not every man took loss the same. Kalin had seen it time and again. The hardest of his soldiers broken down from the loss of a single loved one. I near lost my mind myself. The unwavering Wolf of Metsiphon had been hollowed out with nothing left to him. Sar'tara had all but been stolen from him, but he still had Elizia. “Is there none left?” he asked.

Rask shook his head.

“I'm sorry,” Kalin repeated. “But I need you here. Now more than ever. Something's gone terribly at the capital. I've a missive from the queen -—he new queen. Emma has been given the throne. Elizia will be here soon with her report. We—”

“Forgive me, Kalin,” Rask interjected. “But I can't. I can't carry on fighting anymore. Years, at your side, and all we've ever done is fight. We're still here, and we're still fighting. It's gotten us nowhere. Nowhere but here. And now I've nothing left.”

Kalin stared at his defeated man. Dared he speak of responsibility to such a broken person? Dared he utter commands? “You won't even fight for Xenaria? For Emeria? The girl loves you, you know? Loves us. Did you ever notice that she'd spend an increasing amount of time pestering us since her father's death? You especially, always asking you for a duel and such.”

“I know,” Rask mumbled. He met Kalin's eyes. “I just… can't. At least not right now.”

“Not right now,” Kalin repeated, nodding. “Then, can I be expecting your return?”

Rask slumped again. “I'm not sure.”

Kalin closed his eyes and sighed. “Keep the helm. It's yours. Thank you for your long years of service, my friend. Flames have it if we meet again, it will be under fairer weather.”

“Under fairer weather,” Rask agreed with a nod. And then he was gone.

Kalin slumped in his chair again. He bound his hands and held them to his forehead, awaiting his daughter's report. Someone else close now lost.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Elizia found her father sitting up straight with his eyes closed. The hearth in his office glowed with faint luminescence. The shadewisp flower at the corner of his desk had its petals closed. She had never once seen anyone water that plant. Nor seen anyone replace it. A plant that stood strong through all days of the year.

“Father, should I go replace the firewood?” Elizia asked. She shook the ends of her hair which was still wet from a thorough wash.

“Tell me of Emeria's mannerisms,” he said without opening his eyes. Elizia moved closer to his desk. A folded piece of paper and a broken envelope remained on it. The two halves of the envelope's red seal bore two ends of the royal lotus. Elizia read the brief letter over.

“We are banned from Exaltyron until it is decided otherwise? 'Any attempt to go near the capital will be deemed an act of rebellion' All for what I said? Father we should—” should what, El? You called your best friend a bitch.

But she started it, said a second voice in her head. Elizia explained everything that had happened, from beginning to end, even spilling into the details of her campaign, Sir Draumen's fall, and Lord Galadin's betrayal. Her father seemed unmoved by it all, sitting still as a statue with his head tilted down. An eagle cry sounded from the window Elizia only now noticed was a bare inch open.

She felt relieved to see her father relaxed. If anyone would have answers and solutions, it would be him. Even with her mother and uncle's passing, Emeria's behavior was too odd for this not to have been instigated from a different start point. Something must have happened during her stay at Arcaeus for her to be so upset. Father would see to it that everything was righted.

Except I might have made things worse… But Azurus was there with Emeria now. Surely he'd talk some sense into her.

“Have you heard of the siege of Arcaeus Peak?” Kalin asked.

Elizia opened her mouth, frowned, and then closed it, shaking her head while Kalin's back was still turned to her. He slowly turned to face her, expressionless, but… worn?

“The Empire besieged this place while you were gone.”

“During winter?” Elizia asked, gathering the ends of her hair and shaking it again. “Extremely foolish, I imagine.”

“So I thought. Kazir claimed to have killed you a month into the siege and had the body of a woman mounted on a spear placed before the gates for all to see. Our… morale broke and we almost lost the walls.”

Elizia stayed silent. That explained the affection from the soldiers. How was she to respond to all of this? For months, her father assumed she was dead.

“Emeria was here through it all,” Kalin continued. “Riots broke out in the capital and we couldn't send her away before the siege began. She fought on those very walls,” he said, gesturing outside, “when they were nearly taken by Tarmia. The girl risked her own life to restore the soldier's spirits where I had failed. She along with the Queen's Guard reclaimed a part of the walls and held them. She became our hero. A flame in every heart. Every night for the following cycles saw soldiers sing her praises and speak exaggerations of her. They believed her when she said that the mounted corpse outside was not yours despite the eerie similarities between you and her. Some poor girl who became a part of Kazir's schemes, I imagine. The point is, nothing at all strange happened here. The princess left smiling, promising to visit again after your return. So how then do you think her feelings changed so drastically in the span of two months?”

“Blackmail?” Elizia suggested. She processed all of the information. A siege at Arcaeus by the same man who'd felled her mother, and then claimed herself to be dead. Kazir knew exactly how to hurt father. She met his eyes, seeing the human behind them for once rather than the indomitable man she'd always known him to be. “Or some form of manipulation?”

“My thoughts exactly,” he said, seating himself at his desk. He ran a thumb over the broken envelope seal.

“But Azurus is there with her now. He'll help her, surely.”

“What can a single knight do? Lord Aegis is gone. Dahlia was also slain. All of this suggests the royal court to be rife with traitors. And this Odain of Trillia, you tell me, is the one standing at our new queen's side? The same man who killed your mother's siblings and toyed with Azurus by killing the Draumens?”

Elizia chewed on her lip. A well of guilt formed in her stomach. She was tired and not thinking straight when entering Exaltyron. She'd felt abandoned upon leaving it. But it seemed that she had been the ones to abandon her friends in a pit full of snakes. “We have to go help them, father,” she pleaded.

“We're banned from the city.”

And all because of me. What have I done? “What about military intervention?” she tried. A wretched idea that would lead to many lives lost. But Elizia could think of no other option. Left alone, this misery might plague far more people.

“I don't have enough funds for that. And without siding with other High Houses, we'll be earning the people's ire by reigniting a rebellion —a full fledged civil war this time. Lord Agrienne is missing, you mentioned?” Elizia nodded. “And Lord Galadin has betrayed. Lord Coraine has been slain. I cannot ask his widow for aid. If Xenaria's fleet has been destroyed, and pirates now roam unchallenged, Lady Coraine will need her money to keep her own shores safe.”

“But…” Elizia trailed off. There really was nothing.

“And if what you say is correct, then the numbers of this 'holy militia' are far greater than we might originally have assumed. First, they keep showing up as rebels, and then they change banners and run through the country carrying a writ from the queen. Any haphazard attempt at an intervention could lead to our demise instead. Not to mention exposing our own borders to both the Empire and even more influx of soldiers from the Union.”

“Then what can we do?” Elizia near shouted. This is you! The Shining General. My… my father. If you can't help, then what will I do? Elizia looked down in shame. He was just as human as was she. Her anger was not warranted, but the pain in her chest squeezed out every last drop of joy.

“We wait,” Kalin said. “We move slowly and build up as many advantages as we can without raising alarm. The siege of Arcaeus ended because of a rebellion at their own capital city. From what my spies have told me, they have a new Emperor now. If fate wills, we will have a moment of relief from our constant border struggles.” He sighed leaning against his chair and folding his arms behind his head.

A knock came from the open door behind. A maid in a grey tunic and skirt arrived with a cart of food. Elizia had forgotten how hungry she was.

The duke had the maid dismissed with a wave of the hand after she'd left all the food items on his desk. “For now,” he said, after she'd left, “I'd like to return to Metsiphon for a few cycles. It's been a long time since I've seen your mother's face.”

Elizia wanted to ask about the scholars and physics sent out to find a cure, but she couldn't think of a way to get the words out. She'd already seen a few of those physics in the halls of the garrison, tending to the soldiers of her unit. Mother's unit. She touched the soft blue petals of the shadewisp, recalling memories of her childhood. “I'll come with you.”