Embrace of the Medusi (The Overlords Trilogy Book 2)

by Toby Andersen

  ‘I heard a rumour,’ said Felicity, ‘that the Duke met you during the campaign to discuss marriage.’

  Aurelia saw no harm in answering that. She certainly didn’t think it a secret. Not with King Stauros dead and Theris in the hands of enemies. If anything, rumours of marriage now would help her gain status here. But how to word it. ‘We have discussed a political marriage on more than one occasion now. During the siege, but also recently.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘The siege got too out of hand too quickly. And there were other suitors in play who would have made things very difficult.’

  Felicity nodded, mouthing, ‘Stauros.’

  Aurelia tilted her head, admitting nothing.

  ‘Darling you never told me this,’ said Nepheli. Aurelia hadn’t thought she might be stepping on Nepheli’s toes. If Aurelia married the Duke, however loveless and political the union, it would mean she cut in ahead of Nepheli’s own claim on power. She was betrothed to the Duke’s only remaining son.

  Aurelia tried to smooth it over. ‘Nothing has been confirmed. It will likely never happen.’

  ‘What else did you talk about?’ Meredith tried again.

  Aurelia saw she wasn’t going to be able to brush that question off, but it seemed a good opportunity to test the waters. ‘Mostly he was interested in why I had followed an enemy army.’

  ‘So are we,’ said Meredith.

  Aurelia sighed. ‘I told him it was to secure an ally and an army.’

  Meredith scowled. ‘So, the army is retreating, and he is injured, in battle with you? Yet you ask him to forget all that and give you our army? Are you for real?’

  ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ Ennius’ lesson came back to her. But it may not have been the best time.

  ‘Enemy?’ scoffed Meredith. ‘We are still enemies. If you had taken a step outside since you got here, you’d have heard the heart-breaking stories; beloved husbands who have not returned, others who have but with life-changing wounds, maybe the Duke among them. This city’s young men have been halved. Theris has been Argentor’s enemy for most of my adult life. You can’t just turn that on its head, because you need help taking on someone else.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Aurelia, not prepared to back down. ‘I am an Empress. Hard decisions and negotiations are what I do. Kingdoms change allegiance all the time, wars are forgotten in the face of greater adversaries.’

  ‘Who’s the greater adversary? Stauros Isingr?’

  ‘Stauros is dead. There is far worse out there than him.’ This conversation had turned and Aurelia wasn’t sure how or when. She certainly wasn’t confident she could twist it back.

  ‘Who then?’ spat Meredith.

  Nepheli seemed about to chime in, but then thought better of it. Is she trying to stop me? ‘The Order of the Medousa,’ said Aurelia. She immediately regretted it, but couldn’t stop herself. ‘Their Goddess is real and leads an army of thralled and Medusi. They are the ones who really took Theris. The war between Theris and Argentor is over. A new war has begun between the forces of the Medousa and everyone else.’ Totelun’s vehemence in the throne room had influenced her; now she was the one trying to convince others there was a greater threat they weren’t seeing. It was infuriating. ‘And that war is coming here. We have to fight them or Argentor will be the next to fall.’

  Meredith shook her head. ‘No. Theris is gone. Your power is gone. This enemy you have conjured is just bullshit, and we won’t be duped.’

  Aurelia thought it best to extricate herself before digging a deeper grave. She turned to leave, looking for protection from Chrysaora, not that she could defend her from verbal attacks.

  ‘You aren’t getting away that easily,’ said Meredith. ‘You never really got an introduction like ours.’

  ‘No Meredith, don’t. She’s new,’ said Nepheli.

  Aurelia turned back and faced Meredith.

  Meredith grinned like a shark. ‘Does the great and powerful Empress need your protection? She’s not a child, Nepheli, no matter how young she looks. She has blood on her hands. Argentori blood.’

  Nepheli seemed to retreat, not wanting to push her friend, nor embarrass Aurelia. She couldn’t win.

  ‘Now, let’s see.’ Meredith looked at Aurelia intently, chewing her lip. ‘Aurelia Nectris. An Empress without the moral fibre to die with her people.’

  ‘Meredith, stop,’ said Nepheli, but Aurelia raised her hand.

  ‘Let her,’ she said.

  ‘A precocious brat with delusions of grandeur, and no place in the affairs of adults, let alone other kingdoms. Beneath that innocent smile is a power-hungry bitch queen, just as hell bent on conquest and control as her ancestor Eleutheria. She’s willing to drive a second country into war to sate her own base appetites for revenge. You lost one city already; don’t come here and do the same to ours.’

  When she was certain it was over, Aurelia turned and found Chrysaora there behind her. She fell into step beside her as they strode away, leaving the other women staring. Her face felt hot, and she needed to be away from there before they saw her tears.

  ‘Come back on the morrow,’ Meredith called after her, ‘unless you always run from conflict.’

  *

  That’s when I realised my mistake, she shared later when she was alone in her suite. Cassandra listened intently to her tale of woe from half a country away. Aurelia resided among the beautiful people of Argentor, while her sister still awaited Naus and Totelun’s return, hidden in a rotten little farmer’s cottage with a leaky roof and rats. Those women do not care about my vengeance, nor about my enslaved people. They care only for their own.

  I am not surprised, Cassandra returned. Do not blame them. It is a folly we are all guilty of.

  Even Nepheli, though she seems truthful. I suspect she wants me to succeed only in order to bask in reflected glory, or else destroy my hopes herself.

  And this Meredith?

  The wife of the Chancellor. She is a snake, though the others seem to tolerate her. Aurelia sighed audibly, hidden by the drapes of her bed, listening to the soft susurrations of the fireflies outside. It was so warm here, doors were just archways. Aurelia wondered about the sanity of the entire city. With so many open arches into private abodes, what was to stop a well-compensated assassin putting an end to the Duke’s Empress problem?

  Chrysaora dozed by the outer door to her bedroom, open to the terrace, but this simply made a paranoid Aurelia suspicious of the inner doors. She had to trust Terietta’s protestations of security and the lack of assassins in the city.

  It sounds like she’s a bully who likes to say hurtful things, intoned Cassandra. Attention seekers, the lot of them.

  But Aurelia saw what Cassandra didn’t. Those six women were the key to unlocking Argentor. I think there is more than meets the eye. They are crass and indulgent, but they have the ears of the rich and powerful. Three were married to important men, men whose words move armies. Two others are betrothed or involved. They are a formidable group with a power I’d be a fool to pass on.

  Okay, I understand. But you lost them when you spoke about the war, Cassandra said, admonishing. You need to win them over before you scare them away. You may have made your job harder.

  I know. You don’t have to tell me.

  It’s the truth.

  But a painful one, sent Aurelia, falling silent as she lamented her situation. Cassandra was right; she had only made her task more difficult.

  I think I have tamed one of the rats, Cassandra sent absently. He takes the soft biscuits right from my hand.

  You need my problems to keep you sane, Aurelia joked.

  You may be right. Cassandra sighed into cooler air. Both of them could smell a river nearby, but Cassandra’s flowed with fresh water from Mount Cartracia, where Aurelia’s was warm and collected by a hundred tiny dams into culverts and used to irrigate fields.

  You need to convince them that the war between our nations is over. Change the conv
ersation. There is a new war. A war for our very survival as a species, against the threat of the Medusi. Against Noctiluca. I’m not sure how that is accomplished though. Cassandra’s fearful emotions came through their link loud and clear. If they could only see the visions I have nightly, she sent. Medusi covering the land like a blanket so thick you cannot move. Rolling over hills and across cities, like waves. So many they blot out the sun.

  Please, I have enough to worry about.

  Sorry ‘Relia. The army will come later.

  Aurelia chided herself even before she asked the question. Have you seen it?

  You do not want me to answer that question.

  We agreed they are visions of what might happen, not what will.

  By telling you, sent Cassandra, I might cause you to act a certain way, causing the vision to come true.

  But you also might help me to avoid a terrible fate, countered Aurelia.

  Cassandra sighed for a second time. It’s meaningless, I see you both succeed and die. This gift is worthless. I see visions, but not the point of them. I understand how Velella must have felt, somehow all powerful on one hand, and impotent on the other. She descended into using her talent for her own gain, she was so disillusioned by it, and I can see that path ahead of me too. She stopped for a long moment and Aurelia could feel her crying silently. I can see everything, but I don’t have the power to stop anything.

  You mean Totelun? asked Aurelia.

  I know we hardly met, but I see us travelling together.

  So he survived?

  Oh yes. I’m sorry. I never told you. He is safe. But only for now. He avoided death during the torture, but the things I have seen that await him are worse still. This is what I mean. What is the point of this curse?

  Don’t look at it like that, sent Aurelia. You are new to your skills. Travelling with Naus and Totelun, you may learn new ways to use them. You can’t give up on this, any more than I can give up on my task here. Travel with them, protect them. They will protect you in turn, I know it.

  When Cassandra didn’t argue, she knew she had been right.

  Chapter Eleven

  Nausithorn

  Totelun slammed a dagger into the jaw of the unfortunate guardsman who had found them, and they waited silently to see if they had been discovered. After a heavy moment, listening to the sounds of the palace, they relaxed. Naus was grateful that whatever was going on in the throne room was distracting the vast majority of guards and Clerics and directed Totelun down to the foyer without further incident. They took the same route out as they had when escaping the city before, only this time he didn’t need to leave Totelun behind.

  The guards who had chased Naus when he’d first fled the city had been quickly replaced by thralled guards and acolytes from the Order. These men didn’t know the hollows and secret passages of the palace any more than their predecessors had, and certainly hadn’t any clue about the section of the Theris river that ran under the palace.

  He led the descent down the spiralling staircase, open on the outer edge to a great manmade cavern. There was stonework all across the ceiling and the drop was maybe fifty feet.

  A number of boats rocked gently, tied up and waiting. Small mercies, thought Naus. The one he’d brought back to Theris was miles away moored near the remains of the northern bridge. Though there was moonlight on the water, they stole from the castle unseen.

  Naus chuckled to himself, thinking of them finding the empty cell.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Totelun drew back the oars, propelling them slowly upriver. The river was broad here, but it was a long way to the farmstead where Naus had left Cassandra, and heavy going against the current. Totelun had volunteered but not without making a joke about Naus’ old bones. But now he was sullen and quiet.

  ‘Just thinking of the Clerics finding your empty cell and having no idea where you went. They don’t even know I was there. Reminded me of some of my old infiltrations as a younger man.’

  ‘It won’t take them long to find me again.’

  Naus frowned at him, realised Totelun could barely see him in the darkness, and said, ‘Why do you say that? You’re free. We are back together again, the fearless duo!’

  ‘Free?’ Totelun scoffed. ‘For now. Until that celestial-thralled bastard wakes up and continues his hunt for me.’

  ‘So negative Totelun.’ Naus shook his head. He had expected a grand reunion, Totelun and Naus versus the world again, but instead Totelun seemed distant. ‘What’s eating you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, far too quickly, then sighed. ‘I’m glad we are back together, really I am. I feared I would never see you again.’

  ‘Totelun, you saved my life, and the Empress’ when you stayed behind. I refused an offer to accompany her to Argentor, to be her advisor, because I could not leave you behind, not after what we’ve been through. You mean too much to me.’

  Totelun didn’t respond for a long time. It was not like either of them to share their feelings with each other or anyone else. And yet through their journeys together, he had come to value and treasure Totelun like a son. He hoped Totelun felt the same and suspected his taciturn manner hid deeper sentiment.

  ‘So what took you so long?’ Totelun said eventually. ‘I was tortured by that sadistic High Cleric.’

  ‘You can hardly blame me for that.’ Naus didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘No, I don’t, but…’ He trailed off. ‘But I went through it in there. Harling pumped me full of Medusi venom, made me hallucinate, made me tell him everything, which wasn’t much.’

  ‘But you didn’t know where we went.’

  ‘No, he didn’t much care about Aurelia. He was more interested in the prophecy. He knew about it, Naus. He knew or at least suspected I was the boy from the sky. He wanted to know how I was going to defeat the Medusi.’

  ‘That is troubling. That the Order know of the prophecy and are actively trying to understand it.’

  ‘Or break it. They only needed to kill me.’

  Naus considered that, but eventually said, ‘We don’t really know how though, do we? To destroy the Medusi. It’s a prophecy without instructions.’ Like all of them, he thought sardonically.

  ‘He realised that eventually. But not until he’d made me tell him about my people on the Islands.’

  ‘He’s got no way up there, any more than we do. You don’t need to worry about them.’ Totelun didn’t respond, just continued to pull on the oars. ‘And he never asked about Aurelia, or Cassandra, or me?’

  ‘Barely. The only other person we really discussed apart from me, was Abrax.’

  ‘And that’s the Celestial thrall that hunted us?’ asked Naus.

  ‘Yes. He was an exceptionally strong acolyte. Survived the same torture I went through multiple times and built up an incredible tolerance to the Medusi. And his reward was to be joined with that monster. He gained power over the storms themselves. And Harling called it the power of the Overlords.’

  Naus turned to see the dark city of Theris like a black smudge on the horizon. And hanging above it like an ominous talisman of possession, the Celestial. Celestial’s were so huge and armoured, they didn’t really glow like the other Medusi, but there was a soft blue radiance sitting under the clouds like a second moon.

  The power of the Overlords. Was that how it had worked back when he and Eleutheria had fought them? He couldn’t remember. The Overlords had all been thralled, but to Celestials? Or was it a figure of speech, like the same magnitude of power as the Overlords resided in the Celestials. They still did not know how that power worked, how thralling often gave an individual enhanced skills, and in cases like Abrax, incredible magics. They hadn’t even been sure of the ability to thrall a Celestial until now; it was thought to be impossible for millennia.

  The how of the issue was what was most important now. How did they get ahead of the Order, find out how to beat Noctiluca, when she could warp your mind and command your thoughts? They needed protection. They needed a
nswers.

  But in the end, he said something he hadn’t planned. ‘I’m sorry.’

  This surprised Totelun. ‘For what?’

  ‘For taking too long to get back to you. I crept through the city. I spent time trying to find a safe way into the palace. I might have even recruited a woman to start a rebellion. But I took too long and you were at that sick Cleric’s mercy for too long.’

  ‘But you did,’ said Totelun. ‘You did come back for me. I would be dead, or wishing I was, if you hadn’t.’

  Naus didn’t feel like labouring the point and so instead asked what he’d intended to ask.

  ‘We need to discuss what we’re going to do next.’

  ‘Can’t it wait?’ said Totelun. ‘I need rest and food.’

  ‘We’ll have those at the farmstead.’ Although Naus was doubtful about how much food would be left after Cassandra had been holed up there for two weeks.

  ‘How far is it?’

  ‘Oh, not far now. Do you want me to take over?’

  ‘Classic Naus, offering to help when there’s not much left to do.’

  ‘Fine then. You carry on.’ He huffed for a moment, but he couldn’t keep up the charade of being hurt. ‘I don’t think it can wait,’ he said. ‘Not if you’re right about this Abrax.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Then we need to put some miles between us and him, just like before. Did the High Cleric ever let slip how Abrax tracks you?’

  Totelun seemed to give that some thought. He was a born warrior and hunter, and a skilled tracker himself. ‘Smell?’ he said eventually. ‘It isn’t like a normal hunt. We covered hundreds of miles, over many different types of terrain. I didn’t really leave tracks; we took to the sea and he still followed us.’ He shrugged; Naus could see his outline against the dark sky. ‘It’s a cop out, but it has to be something magical, some sixth sense the Celestial gives him.’

  ‘Well, there lies my reason for asking,’ said Naus. ‘There is too much we don’t know. There are too many questions. We put our quest on hold while we travelled to Theris and got involved in this siege, but we need to start again. And soon.’