by Riley Tune
Jolin moved his hand from under the hand of The High Lady, and leaned in towards her slightly.
“Can you tell me about the Emperor and you daughter?”
21
The High Lady seemed to enjoy the feeling she got from talking to a Tongue. From the moment Jolin began to use his ability, she had a wide smile on her face. Vida looked at me for a moment and then back to the table where Jolin sat.
“Who were the murdered people you mentioned in the letter you sent the Empress?” Jolin asked as he poured himself some of the hot liquid. I thought it was tea at first, but then noticed it had a yellow tint to it.
“They were selected. They were nothing before my daughter. They were men, they were Emperors,” the High Lady responded.
“What does that mean?” Vida said in Bren's deep voice. The High Lady looked at Bren sharply, as if she hadn’t noticed us standing there. Jolin, too, glared at Vida, and put his finger up to his lips.
I leaned in and whispered to Jolin. “Find out how we kill the Emperor first. We can get other details later. Killing him is how we get paid.”
He nodded his head some as he wiped his eyes with both hands.
“Ms. High Lady,” Jolin said, as The High Lady put what seemed to be an extremely long slice of bacon in her mouth and began chewing.
“Emperor Nal. How can he be killed? Do you know?”
Her eyes grew wider as she gasped and looked a Jolin. She didn’t respond. I could feel the shift in the air, as if a storm was brewing inside of the house itself. That feeling of bliss and excitement grew as Jolin increased his powers.
“Do you know how to kill the Emperor? Has your daughter ever talked about it to you? What happens when he dies?”
The High Lady began to breathe a little harder than before. In the quiet room her breaths sounded louder than they should have.
“She is the secret to his resurrection,” The High Lady said with a snap. What was she talking about? The Empress was the secret to the Emperor's resurrection? That couldn’t be right. “He died. He is no immortal. She is the one blessed by the Keeper. Lies! Lies! Lies!” she shouted as she began to shake. “Lies! He is no immortal. He is no Emperor! Not anymore! Lies!”
She screamed over and over as she put her hands to her head.
“Jolin,” I said, but he quickly held his hand up to silence me.
“Not now, Mr. Lox. Seems the High Lady is more resistant than I could have imagined.”
Something clearly was wrong with The High Lady. She seemed to be in pain from his questions. The feeling in the room had changed again. It continued to grow even stronger than before, and I saw Jolin’s eyes becoming red and bloodshot. His was really letting his power flow now, and whatever part of the brain it affected was causing The High Lady to squirm.
“Tell me the truth, High Lady. How is the Empress the secret? How is he not an immortal? He has died and returned time and time again. Tell me.”
My head turned quickly as I heard somebody at the front door trying to get in. Vida peeked out of a window. “It’s the gate guards,” she said.
“Jolin, we need to go,” I hissed. “Now.”
It was then, through gritted teeth and tears in her eyes, that The High Lady spoke.
“Selen is. Selen is. A Changeling.”
I could feel my mouth drop open as I looked to Vida, still standing at the window, whose own mouth gaped open too.
“She changes them. Makes them an Emperor. Puts them in his place. Then they die, and she does it again! Murders! Lies!” She began to scream as blood ran down from her nose.
“Jolin, stop. Stop pushing her!” I screamed.
The door at the front of the house began to shake violently. “What’s going on in there?” the guard's voice bellowed as he banged on the door. He sounded more stern than he had when we arrived.
“Not an Immortal! Not an Immortal! They were selected! They were nothing. She is the one blessed by The Keeper.” Blood oozed from both of her nostrils now and trickled from her ears as her face grew pale and she fell out of her seat. Dead.
The air in the room, and the unique feeling that came with Jolin's powers, faded away as he looked at Vida and I.
“What happened, Jolin?” Vida asked.
The door continued to shake in the front.
“I—I don’t know,” Jolin said as he looked at the lifeless body of The High Lady. “Some people handle answering a Tongue differently. The older a person, the weaker they are, and the results can be—” He trailed off without finishing his words.
I looked at her body. Dead. Lifeless, and innocent. I had seen dead bodies before. It was hard to live with Ember for two years and not get used to seeing them. It was a part of the life we lived. The High Lady was different. She had known what her daughter was doing, and wanted to stop it, according to her letter.
Now, because of us, she was dead.
“You heard what she said, didn’t you?” Jolin asked as he stood from the table. “It’s all a lie. All of it. The Emperor isn’t immortal. He can’t come back to life at all. Selen, the Empress, is a Changeling, like Vida. She’s changing these men and putting them in the Emperor’s place.”
“We have a bigger problem,” Vida said as she looked outside. She was no longer Bren anymore, but her normal self.
I ran to the window she was looking out of. Two new carriages had arrived outside and were coming through the gates. The man banging at the front door had stopped and was approaching the new carriages.
I let out a sigh. “The real escorts for The High Lady are here.”
I looked around the room for something, anything, to get us out of this situation. We were vastly outnumbered, and while I was sure that Vida and I could take a few out, Jolin likely would slow us down. He didn’t seem much like a fighter. Master of words, perhaps, a secret keeping specialist, but certainly not a fighter.
“Any ideas, Warps?” Vida asked me. “Because I got nothing.”
“I, too, am at a loss for ideas, Mr. Lox. This seems to be your realm of expertise,” Jolin added.
I walked back and forth for a moment and then looked out the window once more. All of the guard were walking to the house and talking. The one who had stood at the gate earlier seemed to be pointing at the house and telling a story as he moved his hands wildly.
“Four guards from one carriage, five from the other, and the guards from the gate. Eleven guards total.” I ran my hands through my hair. I could feel the frustration brewing up inside of me. This was the exact reason Warpers worked alone. If it was just me in here, I could warp away and be done with it, but now I had my burdens. I had my friends.
Vida stood proud beside me, a little closer to me than necessary, and she seemed like she wasn’t worried, but her eyes kept darting around, her breathing was faster than normal, and her fists were clenched. She was afraid. Jolin was apparently full of jitters, unable to stop moving, and he had begun to sweat.
“Wait,” I said out loud as I took a few steps back. An idea had hit me suddenly that was risky and wild. The window we had been looking out of was big—very big. Big enough for a person to jump out of.
“Vida,” I said as I looked at her with a smile.
She jerked her head back slightly. “What?” she asked.
“Change into The High Lady. Jolin, hide the body,” I said as I pointed to the woman, dead on the floor.
“Hide the body? Where?” Jolin asked.
“I don’t know, anywhere. Just push her under the table or something,” I replied.
Jolin began to move quickly. He moved the body some, and then noticed that doing so would leave blood visible on the floor. Instead, he adjusted the body, and simply pushed the table up so that it was now standing over the body.
“Go, now,” I said, turning to look at Vida, and jumping back a few feet.
She was no longer Vida—now she was The High Lady. Short, round, and red-haired. She looked up at me.
“Now what?” The voice of Vida cam
e from behind that old face.
“Okay, let the guards in,” I began.
“Let them in?” Jolin said. “Mr. Lox—”
“Trust me, Jolin. This will work.”
Had I just lied to him to his face? Maybe. It could work, though. It could also fail, but we had few choices. “Let them in, and lead them to this room. I want you both to stay close to this window. When you hear me scream, jump out the window.”
Vida and Jolin both looked to the window.
“When you say jump out—” Jolin began.
“Yeah. He means jump through the window,” Vida finished.
“Only options, guys. You just have to trust me,” I said as the guards began again to try the door.
Vida exhaled and rolled her eyes, and began walking slowly and slightly bent, using the wall for support.
Her ability to mimic went far beyond simply changing her appearance. She seemed to have a talent for body language and mannerisms as well. Had I not know it was her, I would have assumed she was the original High Lady.
I looked outside the window, thought to myself, this is why we work alone, and then warped outside near the carriages. I reappeared beside the caprongs of the carriages and scared them a little. They began to move and grunt while stomping the ground.
“Easy, easy,” I said as I put my hands in the air to get their attention. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
Quickly, I untied the caprongs tethered to the first carriage. In my head, I expected the caprongs to take off running once set free. But instead they just stood there.
“Go, go. Run free,” I said, but they just looked at me. I glanced back at the house, then to the caprongs again. I warped and reappeared in the same spot. This did the trick. The caprongs attached to the carriage grunted and ran off in different directions, leaving the carriage they had once pulled behind. I did this again for another carriage, before getting to the one we had arrived in.
Now for the next carriage. Instead of releasing these caprongs, I climbed into the driver's seat. Then I sat down and grabbed hold of the reins. I had never been in the driver's seat of a carriage. It felt weird, and I didn’t like being this high up. It felt like I could fall off at any moment.
I gently jerked the reins once, forcing the caprongs to move the carriage towards the house. I made sure to stay out of sight so that the guards couldn't see. I positioned the carriage, directly to the side of the window, and positioned the caprongs towards the gate. I hoped Vida and Jolin were okay in there. I took a deep breath and let out a howl that my little brother Luka would have been proud of.
Nothing happened for a moment, and then two bodies exploded from the house. Jolin and The High Lady landed on the ground. Vida landed with grace on her feet, while Jolin tumbled and rolled on the ground. She helped him up quickly, and they jumped on the back of the carriage. We didn’t have time for them to get inside. They just held on the handles in the back as I gave a jerk for the caprongs to move.
Speed and energy erupted from the caprongs instantly as we raced down the stone walkway and out through the gates. I could hear screams and curses being hurled at me from the window as we left. Had these guards had spears, we likely wouldn’t have made it out alive. Lucky for us, they only had swords.
I raced through the city, not slowing down, and hoping that passersby didn’t walk in the way of my high-speed carriage.
“Never insult my driving again, Mr. Lox,” Jolin screamed from the back of the carriage as he and Vida held on.
We arrived at the Thornes' home quicker than we'd expected. We were to meet at the larger of the safe-houses in Thera after our conversation with The High Lady. Naturally, at the time of planning, we hadn't expected for her to die in the process. We hadn’t been back here since we'd prepared for the ball a night ago. It seemed like so much longer than that. We had been busy.
I got down from the driver's seat and walked to the back. Vida and Jolin were stepping down to the ground. Jolin was bent over, hands on his knees and breathing hard.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” he said as he held his stomach.
Vida, who was no longer The High Lady, walked to me with a smile. “That was amazing,” she said as she slapped me on the shoulder. It was a good slap. A hard slap, and then she kissed me.
“Oh,” Jolin said in surprise.
“Now I know I’m going to be sick.”
Secrets, fake immortals, unkillable beasts dressed in black, people disappearing—none of it mattered at this moment. Right now it was just me, Vida, and our—whatever we had for each other. I didn’t have a name for it, and I didn’t care. No matter what happened next, for this moment, as the snow continued to fall around us, everything was perfect, and nothing mattered.
22
The events that had happened with The High Lady changed everything for us and for our plans. With her death, along with the knowledge of our break-in during the ball, the Empress and Emperor would be on high alert.
They had increased their guards outside the palace and inside as well. Some staff had been replaced, while other staff members had been executed on the spot. In the three days that followed the death of her mother, the Empress soothed her rage with bloodshed, and all of Thera was aware of it
Originally, Ember was to be the one to deliver the final blow to the Emperor after we uncovered the secret to his immortality and his ability to resurrect. But, for reasons unknown, Ember hadn’t returned from his time in the other kingdoms. Nobody had heard from him, and even when I tried to feel out where he could be from our bond, I was unable to.
It scared me, and I tried to not think about the idea that he might have been unable to return. I found comfort in knowing that Ember was the best at what he did, and that if he was dead, he didn’t go down easy. But why would he be dead? He was only investigating things. Something wasn’t right, and I didn't know exactly what it was.
With Ember gone, the responsibility fell to me to be the one to eliminate the Emperor, and now his wife too. She was the one with the power. She was the one finding normal men and changing them into a copy of the Emperor. That explained why, whenever a resurrection took place, the Emperor didn’t appear until days after. He was learning his new role.
So here I was, standing in the rain, under my cloak, dagger and knives in tow, looking at the palace from an adjacent building. A lot was resting on my shoulders, and mine alone. The future of my family depended on this pay day. Jolin and Vida's futures all came to this. Everything that had led up to this moment, as important as it may have been, seemed pointless now.
I gripped my dagger tightly and looked down at it. It suddenly seemed smaller than normal, but there it was. A simple dagger that, for better or worse, was about to change my life. There was no way I walked away from this alive without killing somebody. Then the curse would start, along with my bloody destiny.
I exhaled and placed my dagger in my belt. It was time for part one of a plan that had taken two days to come up with. I jumped off the building and warped as I fell, landing next to one of the smaller buildings near the palace. The street was dark here; the torch runner hadn’t made it here yet, but he was coming. I could see him in the distance, igniting the tall lamps in the rain.
A torch runner was exactly what I needed now. I warped closer to the area where I had seen a flame appear on top of the lamp. I reappeared beside him, cloak down and fist balled.
“Keeper,” the Torch Runner said in surprise. “You’re a—”
I grabbed the man by his cloak and pulled him in close, delivering a fist to his nose and then, in rapid succession, another fist to his throat. I placed my hand on his neck and, with as much strength as I could, I threw his arm over my head, placed my other hand on his back, and slammed the man down to the ground.
His hand fell on the ground as he slipped into unconsciousness.
“Sorry about this. Nothing personal, but I need your tools,” I said to him. It was true, too.
As a torch runner, this guy
carried around a bag full of flammable liquids in large quantities, and matches
I grabbed all of his supplies and warped inside another small building—the same shop I had come crashing through the last time I was at the palace. The roof was just starting to be repaired. I felt bad for the shop owner as I poured some of the liquid out on the fine clothing and struck the match.
I’m not sure what was inside the torch runner's container, but it was strong. Very strong. The smell burned the inside of my nose. I dropped the match, and everything around me caught ablaze faster than I could have ever imagined.
I warped back out of the store and reappeared on top of a nearby building. From where I stood, looking down, I could see the flames dancing in the night, somehow resistant to the rain as it fell.
I looked down in the torch runner's bag. He had around six more containers of the liquid, which meant I would have to do the same thing to at least six more buildings near the palace.
In what seemed like no time, my bag was empty. I stood on a high building and watched as the neighborhood burned. It pained me some to see my home of Thera ablaze, but the contract must be fulfilled. For myself, for my family, and for Ember, wherever he was.
I made sure all the buildings were empty before I set them on fire, and realized that each bottle contained enough for two buildings to burn strongly. I don’t know what this stuff was, but it was dangerous in the wrong hands. A torch runner could take out half a kingdom if they felt like it.
The rain continued to fall, but the various fires continued to burn bright. It still proved to be resistant to rain water, or perhaps I had used too much of the liquid to set the fires; either way, I had to wait for the rest of the plan to unfold. It didn’t take long for the palace gates to open, and an army of guards flowed out in various directions.
Some were on foot, some were being carried in carriages, while others rode on the backs of caprongs. A total of eleven buildings were burning, and they were spread out enough that it would take the guards some time to contain them. Even foot patrol guards from around Thera were running to the scene.
