by S D Simper
“You said that . . .” Leah’s shy voice trailed off, and even Tallora’s tipsy sight saw her blush. “You said that Kal was returned home?”
“Yes,” Tallora replied, her own smile regretful. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to see him.”
Leah shook her head. “I doubt he thinks anything of me.”
“Well that’s not true at all.” Tallora giggled as she told Leah the bits of truth she did know, that Kal had mentioned her more than once in the time after. “If the stars align, he’d be charmed to see you again.”
Leah’s grin was infectious. “You’ll say hello for me, won’t you?”
“Who’s Kal?” Phira asked.
Of course, surrounded by a bunch of gossiping women, Leah told the rest of her encounter with Kal, her tongue loosened from alcohol as well. “Just a sweet thing,” she said, giggling at the memory. “I’ve never known a royal who was so precocious. Didn’t think that was possible.”
Though Tallora shied at the more explicit details of her best friends’ tryst, she listened when others chimed in with their own ‘royal’ encounters. Plenty of stories of men, but on the occasions a nameless woman was mentioned, Tallora internally rolled her eyes.
“I need to ask,” she said, after at least the fifteenth mention, “how many of you have slept with my wife?”
More than half the room raised their hand, including Leah and Phira, of course.
Tallora didn’t know what emotion filled her, but it manifested as chortling laughter. And then a few more tears. Might’ve been the wine though. Phira shyly raised a hand. “If it’s any consolation, Empress Dauriel called me your name more than once.”
There were two or three other commiserating nods, and Tallora merely sighed. “Oh, my sweet, idiot wife.” She sipped her drink, finding her second glass nearly empty. “Can we talk about something else, please?”
The conversation drifted into more humorous topics, the sort that sent Tallora spiraling into fits of laughter. Soon she couldn’t see straight, much less speak. She wasn’t the only one, and when her vision started blinking in and out, she remembered Leah helping her to a couch, content to let the darkness take her.
Next she remembered, something sharp pinched her side. When she blinked her bleary eyes open, her head pounded, tongue fuzzy and dry. In the darkness, she sat up, wondering if she’d imagined it, when a shadow froze across the room. She stared at the dark figment, wondering if alcohol still muddled her mind.
It twitched.
She stole a breath to gasp—
The shadow rushed. She screamed—it was no figment, but a man wearing black, the bottom half of his face covered by a cloth. Below her on the floor, Leah stirred, but Tallora’s shallow breaths stopped entirely when cold metal touched her throat.
Lights came to life all around them. Disoriented, the man stumbled back—then tripped over Leah, who joined in Tallora’s screaming.
And before he could hit the ground, a figure held an arm to his neck and a knife to his back. “Drop your weapon,” Mithal said, and when the man struggled, he elbowed Mithal in the stomach—
But not before she slid her knife between his ribs. He fell to the ground, breathing labored. Mithal knelt atop him, one knee upon his spine, and cried, “Someone fetch a guard! We need this man interrogated before he passes—”
He did speak, but not in a tongue Tallora recognized. She clutched the blanket around her figure, heart pounding, half-blinded by the abrupt lights, but Leah sat up, listening intently to his frantic words.
When she spoke to the man, her words matched his. His eyes spelled shock as he answered. Their conversation, brief and curt, held as much tension as Mithal herself, forcing him prone with her very body.
Leah looked to Mithal. “He is from Moratham. He was sent to capture Tallora.”
“By whom?”
Leah spoke, and whatever the man replied with seemed unhelpful. “He won’t talk until he’s healed—”
Leah’s words cut off when the man suddenly cried out—Mithal had twisted the knife between his ribs. “Ask again,” the elven woman said, and now guards filtered in, as well as General Khastra, still wearing day clothes. Mithal held out a hand, silently bidding them to wait.
With some trepidation, Leah repeated her phrase to the man, this time listening intently as he managed an answer. “He says he took his orders from the Speaker of Morathma.”
“Ask him why,” Tallora said, finally able to find her voice amidst her panic. She spared a brief glance to Khastra, who listened intently, grateful for any familiarity in this sudden skirmish. “My marriage hasn’t been announced to anyone outside this castle. Moratham was told explicitly that I’d died, so how does anyone know I’m here?”
Leah repeated the words in her tongue. The would-be assassin groaned, then managed a few curt words. “He says he was not given a reason. He was following orders.”
“But how did they know I was here,” Tallora whispered, because all this meant something—something deeper than even a war against a hated kingdom.
The assassin spat blood—and then he collapsed. Mithal lifted the man’s hand and let it drop. It hit the floor with no resistance. “He is either dead or passed out,” she said as she stood.
Khastra stepped forward and knelt beside the man. She placed two fingers to his neck, frowning. “He is not dead yet,” she said thoughtfully. “Guards, take this man to the healers. If he passes, we can ask Priest Rel to question him further. Death never stopped a necromancer.”
Shaken, Tallora clutched her blanket as Khastra spoke quick words to the guards. Leah sat and put an arm around her. “Are you all right?”
“Someone in this castle is colluding with Moratham,” she whispered. “Who knows what else they know.”
Mithal stood as the guards came to take the unconscious man away. “General, a word,” she muttered, and the two women made a vicious sort of eye contact—two powerful woman who ruled domains of very different sorts. “I have reason to believe this is more than it seems.”
Khastra frowned, but not from anger. “Explain.”
“Tallora is correct—Moratham doesn’t know she’s here, and if they do, they found out from one of ours. If there’s a mole, it’s a very close one, considering this man knew to look for her here of all places, well away from Empress Dauriel’s chambers. And how terribly stupid, to try and kidnap her with so many witnesses asleep around her. It means he was desperate or operating on a rigid timeline—or both.”
When Khastra sat beside Tallora on the couch, the entire seat shifted for her massive bulk. “I must speak to the council,” she said to Mithal, sparing a glance for the pool of blood staining the carpet. The final few guards left at her word. “Do not clean that up yet. Instead, keep the mermaid hidden. Send your girls to their rooms.”
Tallora realized they had attracted quite the panicked crowd.
“We must be careful of what we say,” Khastra added. “For all we know, it was one of them.”
“Leah, hide Tallora,” Mithal muttered. “The general is right—we can trust no one.”
Tallora followed, exhausted and confused and parched. Leah helped her to stand, then beckoned her through a door Tallora had never been inside.
Small and dark, bearing only a couch for comfort, light filtered in from cracks in the wall. Muffled sound came from beyond, though Tallora couldn’t quite understand any of the words. “Call it creepy it you want,” Leah whispered, coaxing Tallora to looked through one wall of cracks, “but this room was designed for eavesdropping.”
Tallora peered through the wall and saw a lavishly decorated bed, but no one within it. “You watch clients through here,” she muttered, realization settling in.
“It wasn’t something we did often,” Leah replied, “but if we had any reason to believe a client posed some kind of danger, we would put him in one of the rooms connected to this one for Mithal to keep watch. But come here.”
Against the wall, connected to the main room,
Tallora could eavesdrop here as well, eyes wide as she watched Khastra and Mithal engaged in a hushed conversation—but if they’d spoken louder, it would’ve been trivial to overhear.
Tallora watched with interest, the reality that someone close to her had tried to have her kidnapped finally settling in.
The first to enter was Prince Ilaeri, immutable shock on his sharp features. Mithal bowed, but he said nothing at all as he stared at the bloodstained floor, then brought a slow hand to rest on his cheek. “Is he dead?”
Khastra said, “Not yet. He is in custody.”
“Be that as it may,” Ilaeri said, and then he cut himself off, looking to the guards who had brought him. “I want my son checked on immediately. Guards will be posted in his room for the rest of the night. If the castle was breached by one, it might as well be a hundred.” The guards scurried away, leaving Ilaeri alone. He took a few steps closer. “Where is Tallora?”
“Somewhere secret.”
Adrael appeared then, immediately cringing at the blood staining the carpet.
Tallora heard a soft whimper beside her. “Tallora . . .”
When she turned, Leah was near tears, visibly trembling. “Tallora,” she repeated, “there’s something I need to tell you.”
The rest of the Solviran council filtered in, but Tallora paid them no mind, apprehension filling her at Leah’s opening. “What’s wrong?”
Immediately, tears filled Leah’s eyes, the barest hints of light through the slats glistening upon them. “Please know that I love you so much, and I’m sorry.”
A cold wash of dread coursed through Tallora’s blood. “What did you do?”
“I had no choice. They have Mocum.”
Tallora’s heart clenched. “Leah—”
“The night after we met at the temple, Mocum was stolen from his bed. The ones who took him held a knife to my throat and said . . . they said . . .” Tears streamed down Leah’s face, and Tallora’s dread faded into rage.
“Tell me everything.”
“Dauriel’s room has specific protections placed upon it to stop unwanted visitors—all the royals have it, to prevent this kind of thing from happening. So I was told to lure you out. I took you here because I thought they’d have the least chance of succeeding.”
“Who is they?”
“Someone in Moratham. I don’t know anything beyond that. But now that they’ve failed, I worry . . .” Leah’s head fell into her hands as she quietly cried, and Tallora spared a glance out the slats to be certain they hadn’t been overheard. “They alluded to there being an informant in the castle who would know if I tried to warn you, but I don’t know if it was to scare me or not. All I could do instead was try and wake you when they came.”
So something sharp had pinched her and awoken her from sleep. Tallora watched the Solviran Council through the slats. “Khastra is loyal to Solvira and to Ilune. She’s the one person I’d trust to not be colluding with Moratham. We should try to . . .”
The beautiful High Priestess Toria stood beyond, looking despondent at Khastra’s words. Toria, who was kind and had listened when Tallora wept. Toria, who had seen them together at the temple. Who gifted Morathan vestments. Who had come here within the last few months.
The terrible truth slammed Tallora like a crashing wave.
“Leah, I think I know who the informant is,” Tallora said, the bitter cold of betrayal pulsing through her limbs. She grabbed Leah’s hand, offering a reassuring squeeze. “I believe you. And I forgive you. I’m so sorry you were put in this position. But if we want justice, we have to prove it.” Tallora glared at the priestess, disgusted at the mere idea of it. “It’s Toria. I’m sure of it. We have to get her to confess, but more than that, we have to know what she’s planning. Are there other exits out of here?”
“No,” Leah whispered. “What are you planning?”
“I’m going to lure Toria out. As soon as we’re gone, you’re going to beg to speak to Khastra—alone. Like you said, we don’t know who we can trust. Tell her what you told me. And tell her I’m going to talk her into confessing—if I’m wrong, and she’s innocent, we’ve lost nothing. But if she’s corrupt and all goes according to plan, Mocum will be safe.”
Leah looked wounded, but she swiftly nodded.
Tallora crept to the door and left alone.
“. . . how was he stopped exactly?” Adrael said, his scowl likely permanent.
“Mithal stabbed a dagger through his back . . .” Khastra’s words trailed off at Tallora’s entrance. “Mermaid? You are supposed to be hiding.”
Tallora could not quite fake tears, but after the long night, her watery eyes were genuine. “I-I’m sorry,” she said, adding a slight quiver to her lip. “I just . . . I’ve had such an awful scare.” Too melodramatic, she decided. “Honestly, I’m nearly panicked. Might I ask Priestess Toria for a blessing?”
“You have your free will,” Khastra replied, but her obvious scrutiny showed her actual opinion, which settled somewhere between confusion and ‘all right, stupid,’ but Tallora couldn’t explain.
With demure, she approached Toria, eyes wide and hopefully innocent. “I-I can’t be here,” she stammered, and Priestess Toria put a gentle arm around her.
“Come with me, you poor thing. Staella is a goddess of comfort—I’m certain you know that very well.”
Tallora nodded as they left, then swallowed her residual panic. She had everything to fear, but her ploy would hopefully save Mocum and answer a few damning questions, should she move forward just right. As Priestess Toria led her away, Tallora whispered, “I really do need to speak to you in private.”
Toria looked at her oddly, but not with any notable suspicion. She directed Tallora to a vacant sitting room. Once Toria shut the door, Tallora sat on a couch, hoping it conveyed her ease. “Toria, hear me out before you act—you helped orchestrate this, didn’t you.”
To Toria’s credit, she did not react in the slightest. “I don’t know what you mean—”
“You’re helping Moratham. You told them I was here and that Leah was my friend. You have Mocum hidden somewhere, and I’m asking you to please return him, because I’m going to come with you.”
Toria’s airs faded, revealing nothing sinister, no, but calculating. Her lips lost their habitual smile, instead pulling into a line. “Explain yourself.”
“I’m not Solviran.” Tallora bit her lip; now was the moment her entire plan hinged on. “And I don’t know if I accept their view of Staella.”
Toria kept her stare, eyes narrow as she studied Tallora’s demeanor. “I’m surprised, if only because of your recent marriage.”
“Dauriel has always been a temptation.” Tallora blinked, willing tears to well, but she still couldn’t quite conjure them. She thought of Dauriel and the betrayal she was about to speak, feeling the first rise of something. She dug far back into her memory and recalled the wicked words Amulon had used to describe the love of her life. “I pity her. I do. And I care for her, I think. I married her because she was going to die, but now that she’s gone, I’m so confused. Deep down, I know that what I’m feeling toward her is . . . unnatural. I need help.”
Toria frowned, but not for unkindness, no. “Oh, you poor, sweet thing,” she said, and she sat beside Tallora and embraced her. Tallora breathed out a heavy sigh of relief, which was thankfully misinterpreted. “Staella loves you and will forgive you.”
“After everything Solvira has done to me,” Tallora whispered, bitterness she had long ago released dancing through her mind, “I don’t know who I can trust. I feel so confused, as I said.” She summoned her courage, as well as a convincing sob. “Perhaps I’ve been on the wrong side of this war.”
Toria held her tight, and it might’ve been comforting were Tallora’s heart not pounding for her lie. “Let me take you to them,” Toria whispered, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket. She dabbed the tears welling in Tallora’s eyes—they hadn’t pooled enough to fall. “You would be invaluable
to the war effort. Morathma would proclaim you exalted. And when the Goddess of Stars returns to him, you’ll be one of the first she thanks.”
Her words disgusted Tallora, but she forcibly kept her despondent countenance, nonetheless. “Why were they trying to kidnap me?”
“Bargaining. You were to be taken to the ocean to cut Dauriel’s resolve when she goes to fight Yu’Khrall.”
It was so simple, yet so brilliant. Tallora had to admire it.
“Whatever her strange proclivities, it seems she’s ill enough to think she cares for you, given your blood was what released Yu’Khrall. Your presence would subdue her enough for Yu’Khrall and Morathma to defeat their fleet.”
“Morathma?”
“With the Herald of Ilune joining Neoma in the fight, Morathma has pledged to help Yu’Khrall. Once they’re victorious, they will come to Solvira and build it anew.”
Which was certainly a polite way of saying ‘destroy it,’ but Tallora fixated on a different, more condemning piece—Morathma would be there.
“Take me there,” Tallora said, praying Leah had done her part. “The plan is brilliant. But we must hurry—they’ll come to find me soon.”
Toria held a finger to her lips and beckoned her onward. “I want to believe you have good intentions, and I swear upon my honor as a fellow follower of Staella that if you come with me, Mocum shall be returned. But if you betray me on our journey there, it will only be his head.”
“Of course—”
The moment Toria opened the door, she was bombarded by a wall of blue, tattooed muscle. Khastra immediately strutted inside, Priestess Toria held by the hair. A plethora of armored elites followed, and Leah was the last to join—she shut the door behind them. When Toria tried to scream, Khastra’s hand engulfed her entire face. “If you scream, I will crush your skull.”
The priestess stopped struggling, and when Khastra released her, she collapsed onto the ground, staring with wide, fearful eyes. “What is the meaning of this?”
