by Morgan Rice
“There is,” he agreed. He kissed her again. “But later.”
“Later,” Ceres said, sliding her arms around him.
Unfortunately, a knock came at the doors to Thanos’s chambers before things could go any further, and he knew that the time had come for the real world to intrude. Reluctantly, Thanos stood, drawing Ceres up with him.
“Ready to go be a leader again?” he asked.
“Not really,” Ceres said. “But someone has to.”
Servants came in, accompanied by Ceres’s brother Sartes, presumably there to deliver news.
“Sorry,” Sartes said. “I tried to leave it as long as I could.”
“It’s okay,” Ceres replied.
Thanos knew he would have, but even so, he wished it had been longer.
“I guess there are plenty of things Ceres needs to know,” Thanos guessed. He’d spent his life learning all the things that went into running a city, and that was just during peacetime. At a time like this, it would be far more complicated.
“I want you to hear them too,” Ceres said. “I need all the help I can get.”
Thanos would help any way he could, but there were things he needed to know too. “Have you heard anything about Lucious? Has he been caught in the city? Has he been killed?”
He saw Sartes shake his head. “There are reports coming in that he tried to find a ship to take him to Felldust. Some of the imperial captains who surrendered say that he tried to order them to do it.”
Thanos saw Ceres hug her brother.
“Sounds as though you’ve been busy,” she said.
“Father did some of it, and Akila and the others,” Sartes said. “Akila says that they have the harbor, and will continue to patrol unless you want them to do something else.”
Thanos was impressed. Ceres’s brother sounded older than his years now, competent and ready to help organize things. Maybe he’d always been that way, or maybe it was the war that had done it to him.
“Why would Lucious go to Felldust?” Ceres asked, and it took Thanos a moment to realize that she was asking him, not Sartes. It made sense though. He was the one who knew his brother, after all. What would Lucious do next?
Thanos wasn’t sure he knew. He hadn’t guessed that Lucious would dare to kill their father.
“Felldust has always been an ally to the Empire,” he replied, “so he might just be looking for a place to run.”
He saw Ceres shrug.
“So we let him run.”
Thanos shook his head.
“Or he might have gone there looking to borrow an army,” Thanos said.
Ceres looked concerned.
“Could he really do that?” Ceres asked.
Thanos tried to think.
“I don’t know. Irrien, the First Stone of Felldust, is said to be cunning and cruel in equal parts. If he sees an advantage in attacking, he might try it, but he won’t do it from the goodness of his heart.”
It wasn’t a good thought. Felldust’s rulers competed amongst themselves, which meant that any noble rising to the rank of First Stone was likely to be ruthlessly pragmatic, and Thanos knew as well as anyone how weak the Empire was right then.
“Our father told me that there might be proof of who I was in Felldust,” Thanos added. “He said my mother went there. Perhaps Lucious is looking, too.”
Suddenly, Thanos knew what he had to do.
“I need to go to Felldust,” Thanos said.
Ceres stared at him for a moment.
“What? No.”
“I have to,” Thanos said. “Lucious is going to come back with an army if I don’t, and—”
“Going to Felldust may kill you,” she said.
He smiled.
“So might staying here,” he replied. “I must admit, I don’t quite like the idea of having an army descend on Delos.”
She smiled back.
He wasn’t going to allow anyone to attack his city. Especially not when the woman he loved was waiting there. He would keep Ceres safe.
“I’ll do it,” Thanos assured her. “I’ll do everything I must to stop Lucious. I’ll find him.”
Ceres put a hand on his arm. “Don’t do anything you won’t be able to live with.”
Thanos shook his head, because it was never as simple as that. Things you didn’t do had consequences, just as much as the things you did.
“If I’d killed him back when he was attacking villages, a lot of other people might still be alive.”
Stephania had stopped him from doing that. She’d claimed that she was trying to save him, yet she’d been the one to have Thanos stabbed in the back.
“If you’re sure…” Ceres said. “I don’t want to send you off like this, Thanos. I don’t like the idea of sending you into danger.”
“You’re not sending me. I’m choosing to go. I’ll come back,” Thanos promised her. He wanted to promise her more than that in that moment. He wanted to marry her.
Yet he couldn’t do that. Not now. Not in the rush of this. He couldn’t even ask, because that wouldn’t be fair, with all the things that might still be to come.
“I’ll come back,” Thanos promised instead. “No matter what happens.”
“You’d better,” Ceres told him.
“I will,” Thanos promised. “I’ll stop the invasion, and I will kill my brother—or die trying.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ceres stood in the middle of the great hall and felt as though she was drowning in a sea of questions and information.
“Do you want us to patrol the streets on horseback?” one of Lord West’s men asked.
“What about the resumption of trade?” Yeralt asked. Of course the merchant’s son had found a way to survive all that the Empire had done when Anka and so many others of the rebellion had died. He had a few bruises, and there was a haunted look in his eyes, but beyond that he looked the same as ever. “We can use the tunnels if nothing else to get goods in and out.”
“We need to seal those tunnels,” Akila replied, “or the first enemies to come will pour straight in. We might as well not have walls.”
“We barely do have walls after all the battles,” Ceres pointed out. She felt her father’s hand on her shoulder, its weight there as reassuring as ever.
“I can arrange for work groups to start patching the walls,” he said. “We can reinforce the gates with iron bands.”
“Thank you,” Ceres said.
“But the tunnels…” Yeralt began.
“We can take carts and boats out of the city openly,” Ceres pointed out, “although we won’t have enough people to escort them yet.”
“Then what’s the point?” the merchant’s son replied. “With respect, you don’t understand the complexities of the trade involved, so maybe it’s better to leave it to those who do.”
She looked over to one of the great hall’s windows, looking out to the freedom of the blue sky beyond. Right then, she wished that she could go with Thanos to the docks. She wished that she could see him off on his voyage to Felldust. Part of her wished that she could go with him, because she didn’t want to let Thanos out of her sight again. She didn’t want to risk losing him.
And, truth be told, she didn’t want to spend her time trying to deal with a million problems at once. She knew how to fight, but that didn’t mean that she knew how to arrange food supplies for a city that had been cut off from them by a siege, or work out any of what happened next.
She stepped away from the others then, feeling as though the whole world was pressing in.
Sartes seemed to sense some of her dilemma, because he came up to her, hugging her in front of the others, in spite of the situation.
“We’re here,” Sartes said. “We can fix this.”
“Easy to say,” Ceres replied. “But how? There are still plenty of things we need to work out.”
“Such as?” her brother asked.
There were too many things that came to mind, so Ceres blurted the fi
rst one that came to her. “There will still be people in the city who want to fight us.”
“Fewer than you think,” Sartes said. “The ones who were being forced to fight for the Empire won’t want to keep going. The few who really hate us will know they’ve lost.”
“Then there’s all of them,” Ceres said, nodding back toward the others. “They worked together because they hated the Empire, but now? Akila and the rebels won’t settle for a single leader. Yeralt is probably thinking about the best way to make as much money as possible. Some of Lord West’s men are probably already trying to work out who has the most noble blood…”
“I think I should show you something,” Sartes said.
Ceres frowned, but followed him, trusting that her brother knew what he was doing. He led the way to a balcony, set above the great hall and looking out over the city. Ceres could see the people there, spread out in every direction, looking as though almost everyone in the city had turned out on the street.
They were cheering. No, it was more than that. They were cheering her name.
“Ceres! Ceres! Ceres!”
Ceres could hear the power in their voices, and the happiness there. It was like being back in the Stade again, when people had cheered for her, not just for who she was, but for everything she represented as well. What did she represent now? She was the woman who’d ousted the Empire, who’d brought down the queen’s rule and driven away Lucious. Who’d saved the rebels and freed the city. It was a lot to live up to.
“Maybe later we’ll have to organize a better way of running things,” Sartes said. “But for now, they trust you. They believe in you, and so do I. You can do this.”
Ceres hugged her brother again. “Thank you.”
She carefully composed herself before she went inside. She wasn’t surprised to find that the others in the great hall had already found another topic to argue about.
“And I say they can’t be trusted!” one of the combatlords insisted. “These are the ones who came to watch us die!”
“Things would fall apart without the proper order,” one of Lord West’s men replied.
“We should kill them quickly. They’d do the same to us.”
“What are we arguing about?” Ceres asked, and this time she filled her voice with authority. She might not want to rule here, but someone had to organize things, and if she didn’t, who would?
Akila answered. “About what to do with those who have helped the Empire. About the servants here, the soldiers, the queen and the nobles.”
Ceres thought that they’d had this argument in the great hall, but she should have known better. Some things could only be postponed, not put away completely.
“And you all feel that they should be killed?” Ceres asked. She’d seen some of what had happened during the taking of the castle. She’d seen the bodies lying in the corridors, cut down by men who probably saw themselves as heroes. She’d seen the fear in the eyes of young noblewomen, so certain that they would be raped and murdered by the rebels. Perhaps some had been. “You all think we should become everything the Empire has been?”
The combatlord shrugged. “They’d have seen us dead.”
To him, it was probably an answer. Kill an enemy, or they killed you. There had to be more though, or how could anyone begin to be good?
“It’s Histus, isn’t it?” Ceres asked. “I know how you feel. I’ve stood in the Stade with people baying for my blood. I’ve stood there while Lucious tried to arrange my death. But that doesn’t mean we should become like him. You want to start killing the people who helped the Empire? Where would you start? Where would you stop?”
Ceres looked around at them pointedly, and to her surprise, she could see them all watching her. It still felt so strange to have people looking at her, waiting to hear what she had to say. It didn’t seem so long ago when she’d just been the daughter of a smith. A nobody, or as close to it as made no difference.
“I’m serious,” she said. “Where would each of you stop? Would you kill the nobles? Thanos is a noble, and half of the others aren’t evil, they just never thought hard enough about what their lives meant. Will you kill soldiers who were forced to fight? Servants who never did more than bring nobles food and water?”
She paused to let that sink in. There were too many people out there right now with the taste of blood. It would be so easy for this to spill over into a slaughter.
“There will be those who deserve it,” Akila pointed out. “There will be men who have killed, and I’m told that some of Lady Stephania’s handmaidens have no aversion to murder.”
“If we have proof that they’ve committed crimes,” Ceres said, “then we’ll try them as criminals, but we won’t just start slaughtering people. We won’t be like them. We won’t decide that just because we’re on the right side, anything we do is just.”
That was the biggest trap, wasn’t it? Deciding that you were working for noble ends, so by definition whatever you did was good. Murder, torture, and stealing were still the crimes they had always been.
“Then what will we do?” Yeralt demanded.
“We’ll start to build Delos into the kind of place we want,” Ceres said. “Which means we’ll have to defend it until we can do it.”
She’d been thinking about this almost constantly. Now was the time to find out if any of her plans made sense. She just hoped that the people with her couldn’t see through to the doubt beneath.
“Akila, can you and your men patrol outside the harbor, and give us early warning if enemies try to retake Delos by sea?”
Akila nodded. “We can do that.”
Ceres turned to the next man waiting, because the main thing was for each of them to feel as though there was a plan to it.
“And maybe we can start to get a trade route going between Delos and Haylon,” Ceres said. “Yeralt, would that be better than trying to sneak out caravans?”
The merchant’s son nodded. “It would.”
“We’ll need to organize funerals for the people killed in the siege,” Ceres said. One in particular mattered. “I want Anka’s funeral pyre to have every possible honor. And the combatlords who fell in the Stade. The guards… leave the guards I turned to stone where they are. They can serve as a monument to what happened. We won’t be using the Stade for any more Killings.”
That was definite in her mind. She wouldn’t stand by while more combatlords were slaughtered for entertainment.
“What about rebuilding the city?” Sartes asked.
Ceres shook her head. “We will, as soon as we can, but for now we need to focus on the walls and the gates. Take some of the soldiers who surrendered. Have them help move rubble from damaged houses to build barricades. We need to be ready, and we can test how willing they are to help.”
“Which just leaves one thing to decide,” Akila said, gesturing to the doors of the great hall.
Ceres doubted that there would ever just be one thing. Even so, she watched as the doors swung open, and two of Lord West’s former men brought in a figure between them. Queen Athena looked haggard and dirt-streaked, with chains fastened around her wrists and a soldier holding each of her elbows. They brought her forward, pushing her to her knees between Ceres and the others.
“I hope you agree that she must die,” Yeralt said.
Queen Athena glared up at them, proud and defiant. Ceres looked back at her evenly.
“We need to kill her,” Histus said.
Even Sartes and her father looked at the queen with obvious hatred.
“I want to speak to her alone,” Ceres said.
They looked at her with surprise.
“Ceres?” Sartes began.
Ceres shook her head. “I need to do this, and I need to do it alone. Please, all of you.”
To her surprise, everyone left without trying to argue. They shut the door behind them, leaving her and the queen in the vast expanse of the great hall.
“Is this where you tell me that I deserve to die
for what I tried to do to your beloved Thanos?” Athena demanded. She stood smoothly. “Oh, should I have waited for permission? After all, you’re the queen now, aren’t you?”
Ceres knew that Athena was trying to goad her, but now, with Thanos safe, she refused to let herself be pulled in.
“I wouldn’t want to be queen,” Ceres said.
“Of course you want to be,” Athena shot back. “Everyone wants power, whether they admit it to themselves or not. They might want it to protect those they care about, or to give themselves an easier life, but they want it just the same.”
It sounded too much like a parent lecturing a wayward child. Except that in this case, Athena was wrong.
Ceres shook her head. “People aren’t like you. They don’t think the way you do.”
“You’re right about that,” Athena said. “For the most part they are stupid, foolish little things without the strength or the bravery to do whatever’s necessary. Without any breeding. But then, I forgot, you have all the noble blood anyone could want, don’t you?”
Ceres had thought long and hard about the Ancient One blood in her veins. It had been the thing that convinced Lord West, after all.
“I’m not like you,” Ceres insisted.
“No?” Athena countered, stepping over to the window. “How many people have you killed to get to the throne?”
A part of Ceres wanted to react. She could feel her fists clenching, but she forced herself to stay calm.
“I’m not on the throne,” Ceres said. She wasn’t a queen. She certainly didn’t rule the Empire because she was the strongest, or the one with the right blood, or the most ruthless. At the moment, she was leading only because she seemed to be the one the others would listen to.
“You think anyone really believes that?” the queen asked. “Oh, you might not call yourself a queen at first, but you’ll be one in all but name. Here comes Ceres, the return of our Ancient One masters!”
“Be quiet!” Ceres snapped back, and her powers flared through her with her anger. The reminder of the things she’d used those powers to do was too strong in that moment.
“What will you do?” the queen countered. “Kill me? Turn me to stone? Thrust a blade through my heart? I was dead the moment you took the city. I’m the woman who rules the Empire you despise. I’m the one who condemned your beloved Thanos to die.”
