Origins

by A D Starrling

  The idea for them had come to her the morning when she stood in the arena, soaked in the blood of the beasts King Gishur had challenged her with. As the crowd unfroze and started to chant her name, Mila had looked from the dead lions to the crimson bident and dagger in her hands. A flash of intuition had bolted through her and she had seen the design of an entirely different kind of pronged weapon in her mind.

  ‘You want to use a furnace?’ King Gishur had asked at the end of the first day she spent in the council chamber.

  ‘Yes.’ Mila had ignored his arched eyebrow and puzzled expression. ‘And I want to take a closer look at your bident.’

  A mournful look had come over the king. ‘Ah, yes. The bident.’ He sighed. ‘That had been in our family for generations, ever since our ancestors tilled the land where the first Parsah was born.’

  An uncommon pang of remorse had stabbed through Mila. ‘Will you lend it to me?’

  The king had hesitated before dipping his chin. ‘Why not? I am curious to see what you will make of it.’

  And so they had watched as she worked at a smelter’s furnace outside the palace armory for the next two days. Most of the time, it was Gilgamesh who had kept her company, his curious eyes observing her every move as she molded, dipped, and hammered at the red, glowing metal. The king and Megash had come by on the odd occasion, after they had finished putting together the finer details of the plans they had made in the mornings.

  On the second day, Nisuna visited with her daughter. Soon after they arrived, the baby started bawling. After tolerating several excruciatingly painful moments of the child’s shrieks, Mila put down the hammer and tongs she was using, strode across to where Nisuna was trying to comfort her, and took her from her shocked mother’s arms.

  She stared at the wriggling, warm bundle she held at arm’s length. ‘Stop that infernal noise.’

  The baby’s face screwed up further, her wails reaching a pitch that threatened to shatter the very heavens.

  Mila winced, then scowled. ‘This is your second and final warning.’

  The baby paused and hiccuped. Her face slowly cleared. She gazed solemnly at Mila from limpid blue eyes. Then, she giggled.

  Mila blinked, nonplussed. She became aware of a muffled snort to her left and looked around to see Nisuna with her hand over her mouth, stifling her laughter, tears streaming down her face. Next to her, Gilgamesh stood gaping, eyes filled with wonderment and adoration, clearly impressed that someone other than he had tamed his sister.

  ‘Your daughter has no sense of danger,’ Mila muttered to Nisuna.

  She plunked the baby back in her mother’s arms and had turned to walk away when something gripped her. She looked down and saw the baby’s chubby hand clutching her tunic. As she stared into the infant’s smiling eyes, Mila thought of her own children. Sorrow surged through her. She had not spent much time with them when they were of this age.

  In a daze, Mila raised a hand and stroked the baby’s soft cheek with a gentle finger. The infant cooed and blew a bubble.

  Footsteps rose up ahead, distracting her. She looked up and saw Aäron drawing near. She had not seen a lot of him after their mornings in the council chamber. As the general of the extended army, he had had much to do.

  The tired expression on his face melted away when he saw her, only to be replaced by one that twisted through her heart and stole her breath. Though it lasted the briefest of moments, Mila registered the intense longing that flared in his eyes when he looked at her and the baby.

  An ache started deep inside her, one that she knew he would assuage that evening, as he had the past two, repeating the frighteningly intense passion of their first night. Though she knew every inch of his body, every scar, every spot that brought him pleasure, she craved more still, as did he. They had barely slept these last days, too drunk and lost in each other to care for rest.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Mila saw Nisuna stare between the two of them.

  Aäron slowed to a stop at their side, face composed once more. ‘Are they almost ready? We leave tomorrow.’

  Mila swallowed and nodded. ‘Yes, they will be done soon.’

  It was a while later that she finally laid down the implements she had been using. As dusk fell across the city and the valley beyond, Mila raised the two weapons she had forged, testing their weight in her hands. The fading light caught the edges of the short, twin, three-pronged spears. Longer than a dagger and shorter than a sword, they were slender and fitted her grip perfectly.

  She spun them in her hands, the blades moving lightning fast as she experimented with their hold, at times resting one against her forearm while she thrust out with the other.

  A slow clapping sounded behind her. She turned to see Megash join Gilgamesh and Aäron, Nisuna having taken her daughter away to feed her.

  ‘Those look deadly,’ said Megash with a grin. ‘What are they though?’

  Mila had stared from him to the weapons in her hands. ‘The notion came to me three days ago, in the arena, when your brother threw the bident to me and your son your dagger. They are a combination of the two.’

  Megash arched an eyebrow. ‘So, another type of bident?’

  ‘A trident,’ said Aäron.

  They turned to him. He shrugged. ‘Well, it is a three-pronged spear.’

  Mila had mulled over the new name. ‘Trident. Yes, I like that. Trident daggers.’

  She cast the weapons high up in the air. They spun, glinting as they were kissed by the last rays of the sun, before falling toward the ground, blades humming.

  Gilgamesh gasped when Mila caught them, the short handles settling into her palms as if they belonged. She flashed a grin at him. He grinned back.

  ‘Was that envy I heard in your voice, Prince?’ Mila said presently as they rode into the Zagros Mountains, her lips curving in an amused smile.

  Aäron’s eyes widened at her teasing tone, his steed dropping slightly behind Buros for a moment.

  ‘No, it was not,’ he said with a grunt. ‘I would likely stab myself in the gut if I were to use one of those.’

  Mila laughed, the sound carrying across the vale as clear as a bell. Some of the soldiers stared, open-mouthed. Aäron’s face softened.

  They reached Dur Untash at sundown and conferred with Governor Edras and Darius in the hidden palace inside the mountain long into the evening. Though they retired to separate bedchambers, Aäron came to hers as he had done the past nights. As they lay in each other’s arms, hearts racing, their labored breathing filling the flame-lit room, Mila lifted her head and ran her fingers gently down his face, lingering on his eyes and cheeks and lips.

  ‘What is it?’ he murmured, his breath warming her skin.

  Mila hesitated, feeling strangely vulnerable. She swallowed before lowering her face to his chest.

  As she listened to the strong beat of his heart, she whispered her confession. ‘I have never known this before. This…peace.’

  Aäron was quiet for the longest time.

  ‘You do not know how deliriously happy that makes me,’ he finally said, his voice husky.

  He pulled her up until she lay full length on his body and cradled her head in his hands for a long, deep kiss.

  ‘Can you tell, my queen?’ he breathed against her lips, his eyes glinting below her.

  Mila placed her hands on his chest and felt his heartbeat pick up.

  She wriggled her hips and grinned when he groaned and cursed. ‘Well, the lower part of you is.’

  He twisted, flipping her onto her back, pressing her into the bed with the weight of his body. Then he brought his mouth to her ear and whispered every sinful thing he wanted to do to her, before proceeding to do them, teasing her mercilessly with his lips and tongue as she arched helplessly beneath him, his hands pinning her wrists above her head, his breath scorching her skin as she sought the cradle of his hips with her own. When he finally melded his body with hers, wrenching a sob from her throat, their sensuous dance cast sinuous
shadows across the walls of the room long into the night.

  Mila thought she would never tire of this. This perfect bliss. This heavenly joy she had never before experienced.

  Dawn came too soon and they parted ways briefly before meeting again outside the palace, where the extended troop waited for them, now some two-hundred strong, with soldiers stationed in Dur Untash joining their ranks for their upcoming mission.

  ‘May the Sun and the Moon guide your path and see you safely to your destination,’ said Darius as he watched them leave. Like the men around them, his face was filled with a burning light, galvanized by the prospect of finally seeing all their years of planning come to fruition. ‘I shall see you both in sixteen days, at the meeting point.’

  Mila dipped her chin before wheeling Buros around, Aäron at her side.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The call came from the east, once, then twice, a nighthawk’s shrill cry swiftly lost in the cool breeze coursing across the waters of the lake.

  A thrill shot through Mila.

  She glanced at the soldier next to her. ‘Remember. If we have to engage them, we should aim to wound, not to kill.’

  Kayan hesitated, then nodded. As they travelled north across the plateau east of the Zagros, the captain had started to thaw toward her. Though she still sensed his inherent mistrust, his respect for Aäron, the one who had freed him from slavery and who was now his general, overshadowed whatever ill feelings he held against her.

  That realization only served to support Mila’s growing certainty that the man she had so recently become intimate with would play a crucial role in the war to come.

  They moved silently up the hard-packed earth, toward the fortress crowning the hill of the largest island on Lake Kadavan, faces and limbs covered with mud to mask their skin, weapons shrouded with cloth lest the moon and stars revealed the glint of metal.

  ‘Kadavan?’

  King Gishur’s startled expression had been mirrored by those of the men in the council chamber eight days past, on the morning she first told them her plans.

  ‘That city is long dead.’ A frown had furrowed his brow. ‘After the destruction you and your kin rained upon it, the only things fit to survive in its ruins are snakes and scorpions.’

  Mila leaned over the table. ‘The city may be dead.’ Her finger moved across the map. ‘But the lake next to it is not.’

  As puzzled murmurs resonated around the room, understanding had dawned in Aäron’s eyes.

  A hint of admiration laced his voice. ‘So the rumors are untrue?’

  ‘What rumors?’ said a captain.

  ‘That the souls of the dead walk in Kadavan.’ Aäron glanced around the chamber. ‘There have been scattered reports over the years, after the city fell at the hands of the Empire, stories of a place of ill omen. Travelers speak of strange lights in the sky and ghostly shrieks that would unnerve the bravest of men.’

  Mila straightened as she became the object of dozens of penetrating stares.

  ‘What is on Lake Kadavan, Princess?’ Megash had asked.

  A grin curved her lips. ‘The biggest secret of the Empire. And it is not just on the lake, but beneath it as well. A prison holding some thousand men, among them governors of cities we have conquered and the fighters still loyal to them.’

  Gasps had sounded around her.

  King Gishur rose from his seat, his face pale beneath his crown. ‘What—how?!’

  Mila shrugged. ‘We are good at keeping things hidden.’

  She felt Aäron’s eyes on her and turned to meet his gaze.

  An excited smile hovered on his lips, mirroring the hot glint in the blue depths. ‘Something tells me the Empire has not spared those men out of good will.’

  Mila dipped her chin, an equally charged thrill running through her. ‘You are correct. However callous my father is, he is not one to waste valuable resources.’ She tapped the drawing of the lake on the map. ‘Inside the fortress is one of the Empire’s largest arsenals. Scores of armor and weapons, all forged by those very same prisoners.’ She saw realization wash across the faces of the men watching her. ‘If we take Kadavan, not only can we gain a significant addition to our forces in the form of the inmates and the governors who still hold sway over them, we also secure more arms for our men.’

  ‘Son of a dog,’ Megash had muttered in the stunned silence.

  It had taken them four days to travel to the ruined city of Kadavan from Dur Untash, both Mila and Aäron setting a brisk pace that the soldiers eagerly followed. As their mounts ate up the leagues separating them from their destination, Mila was reminded of the time she rode to Hazaara with Jared and Aäron, at the behest of Crovir. Except on this occasion, hope and fire filled her heart as opposed to unease and rage.

  They had passed the dead city and reached the mountains circling the lake shortly after nightfall. After taking a short rest and securing the horses in a gully, they had made their way stealthily to the shore. It had taken but moments to capture the small group of soldiers manning the guard towers dotted around the lake and a pier which held a dozen boats and barges. Instead of taking the vessels, they had used driftwood and felled logs stacked in the shallows next to the dock, timber destined for the fires of the fortress, to help carry them across the water.

  Once on the main island, they had separated, Mila taking half the men to the south while Aäron went east with the rest of the soldiers. They would be attacking on two fronts.

  At the sound of the fake nighthawk’s call, the cue that Aäron was in position, Mila and her troop scaled the slope of the hill until they reached the base of the forty-foot wall enclosing the fortress. From there, they spread along the palisade to the strategic positions she had predetermined, away from the light cast by the fires atop the ramparts.

  Then, they waited.

  At midnight, a shuffle of steps sounded high above as a soldier climbed a guard tower. Outlined against the dark sky, he leaned across the guard rail on the rooftop and waved a flaming torch. Mila looked over her shoulder. From the shoreline to the south came a corresponding light tracing a golden arc in the gloom. Then, lights came from the east and west. Though she could not see it, she knew there would be one from the northern shore as well.

  As per her instructions, the soldiers she and Aäron had left behind to watch over the guard towers they had secured on the edge of the lake were responding to the main fortress’s signal, one issued four times a day to check there was no sign of any imminent danger to the prison.

  At the evidence of the all clear, the call of a horn sounded from above and echoed across the fort. The soldiers inside were about to proceed to a change of guards.

  Mila undid the cloak covering her weapons and grappling hook and cast it aside. The men next to her did the same, the message passing along the line. They had but moments to scale the wall before the next guards reached the towers.

  She spun the hook above her head, slow at first, then accelerating rapidly, the rope twisting in her hand. The metal hummed as it left her grasp and sailed through the air, the claws sinking into the stone parapet above a heartbeat later. The faint clunk was mirrored by others as her men secured their ropes to the wall. By then, she was halfway up the palisade.

  By the time the first of them reached the rampart, she had already knocked out four guards. They moved swiftly in the shadows, silencing the soldiers they encountered by covering their noses and mouths with cloths soaked with the juice of the joy plant, a powerful sedative obtained from seeds harvested in the valley of the hidden Parsah, where they were being grown for medicinal purposes in anticipation of the upcoming war.

  The alarm was raised when they were halfway across the fortress’s main grounds, a gargled scream released from a soldier who had managed to fight off one of her men. Although Mila had not expected their subterfuge to last long, she was pleased it had endured long enough for them to take the armory by the main gates.

  She left her sword and trident daggers unt
ouched and narrowed her eyes at the wave of soldiers pouring out from the barracks around them.

  ‘Stand your ground,’ she ordered in a hard voice. ‘This will be over soon.’

  Kayan and the others glanced at each other before nodding grimly, hands frozen on the handles of their blades.

  Recognition flashed on the faces of several of the Empire’s soldiers as they drew near. They faltered, feet skidding in the dirt, the ones behind them colliding into their backs and sending some sprawling to the ground.

  Cries of ‘The Red Queen!’ echoed around her.

  Then she saw him, the soldier wearing the uniform of troop commander, the warden of the prison. He was a giant, some six and a half feet tall, all muscle and sinew, face and limbs covered in scars. He stormed past his men and stopped a short distance away, his broadsword looking fragile in his large hand. A sneer distorted his features as he studied her.

  ‘I see the traitor and killer of kings has come to us!’ he shouted to the crowd before glaring at her once more.

  Angry calls and shouts rose in the night.

  Mila frowned. ‘Romerus was not a king.’

  The clamor stilled at her words. A hush fell over the grounds.

  ‘He was my grandfather and one of the people I cherished most in this world. I did not—’ she paused, her breath locking in her throat for a moment, ‘—could never slay him.’ Her voice resonated against the walls around them, hard and steady. ‘King Crovir killed him.’

  Uproar shattered the lull. Cries of ‘Traitor!’ and ‘Liar!’ filled the air. Out the corner of her eye, Mila saw Kayan’s knuckles whiten on his sword.

  ‘I never thought I would see the day the Red Queen would resort to such cheap tactics.’ A bitter smile twisted the troop commander’s lips. He glanced at his soldiers. ‘See how the mighty fall, men! The kings will compensate us richly when we deliver her to the capi—’

  Mila’s foot collided violently with his jaw, the power of her flying kick knocking three of his teeth out and snapping his head sideways. He grunted and staggered back several steps while she dropped lightly to the ground before him.