by Pirateaba
This time he knew he heard the word bellowed from within. And then the King raised his arms. He stopped in front of the gates, and shouted.
“People of Rast! Who is your King!?”
And the walls of the city came tumbling down.
—-
“Perhaps it was simply a metaphor.”
When Trey could hear again, when the shouting and chaos had ended, hours, years later, that was what Flos said to him. It was what he said when the gates were thrown open, the people of Rast, his people, standing on the walls and cheering, the guardsmen and soldiers having either thrown down their arms and surrendered, or joined the people. They had opened the gates and flooded out, shouting and calling their King’s name.
The city was now the King of Destruction’s. The people had turned on their leaders, overwhelmed the few people who would have kept the gates barred. They had remembered their King, the starving poor, the homeless, and the hungry citizens. They had risen, and the walls of Rast had fallen in a metaphorical sense as they opened the gates for their King.
Not without blood. Trey heard it later. Some people had fought and died to prevent the gates being opened. The [Mayor] had fled, and been torn apart by a mob. That was the darkness in Flos’ victory.
But there was much to celebrate as well. Because the first thing Flos did was order Orthenon to ensure no one would starve. Already riders were racing back towards Reim, to return with food, and the warehouses were being opened and food carefully distributed to those in dire need.
They did not fling open the doors and let everyone eat their fill. Orthenon saw to that. In quick order he’d established control and posted guards on the warehouses. People would be fed, but it would be sensibly, and without exhausting the food they had. Winter would soon be here, and every sack of grain counted.
And yet, it was still a celebration in the streets. Trey still heard cheering, or he would have if his ears were properly working. They’d given up at some point and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever hear things properly again.
But he felt it in the air. Something electric and alive. Flos was walking his streets, still walking, but stopping to greet his people. He had an escort of soldiers around him, more to keep the King from being surrounded forever than anything else.
Trey sat on the battlements, sipping a drink. It was just water, but it was refreshingly cool, hauled up from a deep well. Teres wasn’t here; she was with Orthenon, following him about, watching him work.
She had a crush. But Trey was fine with being alone, for a little bit. He had chosen a quiet part of the wall, and so he was surprised when someone found him.
Gazi the Omniscient climbed up and sat next to Trey without a word. He stared at her. He thought about edging away, but didn’t.
“The city rejoices.”
The Gazer had a cup in her hands. Trey looked. It was water too. The Gazer’s head was staring down below into the city, away from Trey but she’d still seen Trey.
“There is not enough alcohol to celebrate. And so I make do with this. It is no hardship.”
“Oh. I uh—”
She turned her head then, to smile at him. Trey blinked at her as two of Gazi’s eyes focused on him. She was smiling as always, but there wasn’t anything scary about her right now. She was just smiling. Like a normal person. It was disconcerting, coming from her.
“He brought down the walls quickly, didn’t he? It was seven days in your story, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“But in your story the walls themselves fell. Is that the difference between a [King] and a god?”
She didn’t wait for a reply. Gazi took a drink from her cup and stared down into the city. Trey had a feeling her eyes were following Flos, wherever he was. After a few minutes, Gazi spoke.
“This is what it was always like. This is why we followed him. Not simply because he was a [King]. But because of this.”
“What? Oh.”
It was a question that Trey hadn’t ever asked aloud. Gazi nodded at him.
“You have seen him as he is now. As he struggles to return to what he was. But we remember. This is why we followed him, we seven, his subjects. For these moments. For what he could do. Because he was a King.”
Trey had no answer to that, nothing he could say. But it wasn’t a statement that demanded an answer. He and Gazi sat on the battlements until the sun set. He rode back with Teres on a horse, reaching Reim in just over an hour. Apparently, the people who had followed Flos marched into the night, but met riders and wagons coming their way with food to keep them supplied. And their King walked with them the entire way, speaking with his people.
And so as Trey staggered to his room, before he fell asleep onto his bed, which was actually Teres’ and she fell asleep onto his, he heard it. The whispers.
They ran through the hallways, through the entire palace. They swept into the city, out of the roads, from person to person, by spell and letter. A rumor.
The King of Destruction was awake. He had returned, truly. And there was something else. He had taken a city. Not just taken it—he had brought the walls down. No, he had conquered it with just one word. He had stormed the city and taken it without a single life lost. He had marched up to the gates and brought down the walls with a single word
That was rumor. But there was truth in it. And the truth was that the King of Destruction had awoken. It was no longer gossip, idle speculation, or a secret known by the few and powerful. Now it was a shout, and it spread like wildfire to the people who had waited for this day. It could no longer be ignored, and they called his name once more.
Flos. The King of Destruction.
He had awoken. He had returned at last. Trey slept with that knowledge ringing in his ears and heard.
The declaration of war reached the palace the next day.
4.04 K
Trey was sitting in the banquet hall with Teres, trying to explain what a shortcake was to an interested audience of servants and a harried [Cook] when Gazi found him. The half-Gazer strode through the crowd and jerked her thumb.
“Come.”
It was indicative of her personality that no one asked questions. Trey and Teres were following Gazi out of the banquet hall in an instant.
“Why are we—”
Gazi’s head turned and she cut Teres off with an answer.
“A messenger has come for my lord Flos. He desires you to hear what is being said.”
“And wh—”
“War.”
The world precipitated a crash of broken pottery. A woman who’d been carrying a load of dirty dishes dropped them when she heard the word. Gazi glanced at her and the woman immediately bowed.
“War?”
Trey said it faintly. War? Now? Of course, Flos was the King of Destruction, but—
“It will be war.”
One of Gazi’s eyes turned to follow the servant as she bent to pick up the broken shards. She didn’t say anything, but Trey would have bet his eyeteeth—since he didn’t have any actual money—that the woman would be telling everyone in earshot as soon as she was out of sight. And Gazi probably new that, but she walked on.
As it turned out, war had already been declared by the time the twins and Gazi reached the throne room. They entered to hear shouting, and saw a young man wearing leather armor, covered in a thin layer of dust and sweat, shouting at Flos.
“—will not kneel to you! Hellios has risen, and our soldiers are marching towards this city at this very moment!”
Flos sat on his throne, flanked by Orthenon and Mars as he stared down at the messenger.
“So Queen Calliope desires war?”
The young man’s eyes blazed up at Flos. He didn’t seem to notice the twins as they edged around the room, nor Gazi as she strode up to the throne and took a place next to Orthenon.
“You know she does. Her hatred of you burns no less brightly than my own, King Flos of Reim. You killed my father, and for that you will answer at last.”
His father. Trey looked at the young man. Was he a [Prince]? Certainly, Flos seemed to be treating him like one, to let him yell at him in front of his vassals. But why had a [Prince] come himself? He certainly wasn’t attired like one, and he looked like he’d been on the road for hours, if not days.
“That I killed King Treland is reason enough to hate. But I would have thought your mother had more sense. She knows what war brings. She has seen it once. I doubt she would be foolish to wish for it again.”
His words made the young prince flush with fury.
“We have held our peace because you slept, in cowardice. But now that you are awake, it is war, Flos of Reim!”
“And why were you sent? Did your mother fear I would slay her messenger?”
“I took his place. I had to see the truth of it myself, that you were awake. I wanted to lay eyes on my father’s killer myself.”
The young man’s eyes burned as he put his hand on the sword at his waist. No one moved, despite the threat. Orthenon stared coldly down at the prince, Mars with intensity, watching his hands. Gazi looked bored; only one eye was one him. Two were for her King and one—
Trey shuddered. One was watching him and Teres. Watching them react to the prince.
“Tell me your name, bold son of Calliope. You have not given it. If I am to be at war with the kingdom of Hellios, I would know who brings such tidings.”
“I am [Prince] Siyal of Hellios. And I swear to you, King Flos, that I will have vengeance for—”
“Your father. Yes, I heard.”
Flos sighed. He stared down at Siyal with an expression Trey and Teres hadn’t seen on him before. It wasn’t anger. It was more like grim intensity. It was a very kingly expression in that sense, but there was something else in the way he looked at Siyal.
Disappointment.
“So you seek my head as a matter of vengeance. You would not be the first, nor the last. But why for Treland? He was not worthy of it. Far better to come after me for those countless thousands I slew, or your shattered kingdom. Why waste hatred for the death of a worthless king, even if he was a father?”
“How dare you.”
Siyal’s eyes blazed and he actually unsheathed his sword a fraction. At once, Orthenon and Mars both reached for their sword hilts. The prince halted, eying both of them.
“I did not come here to bare my blade, King Flos. But one more word of insult and I will shed my blood, regardless of the odds!”
“I hear your words, Siyal. But what I said was no insult. It was the truth.”
Flos cut off Siyal as the young man looked as if he might truly rush the throne. He stood up and stared down at the young man.
“You think your father was a man worth avenging? He was not.”
The King of Destruction raised his voice over the young man’s voice.
“Silence! He. Was. Not. Because I am a [King], know that I speak the truth. Your father was no hero, no great ruler, boy. He was a fool and a monster. You have a King’s word on that.”
“Liar!”
It was amazing, Trey thought, that Siyal could shout that at Flos, much less to his face. A King’s word…but Flos didn’t grow angry. He just stared Siyal down, and the [Prince] lost a bit of his bravado in the silence that followed.
“I will not lie, even for the fallen. That your father died does not change the nature of his sin. Neither did his Class. He treated his subjects like animals—no, worse than that.”
“He was a [King]! He deserved an honorable death, not an execution on the battlefield! How he ruled was no business of yours!”
“His people cried out for justice. They came to me, begging for protection, to bring down a king that cared more for his own wealth and that of his friends than his people. Is that the man you admire, Siyal? Or did your mother never tell you of his failures, only my crimes? I went to war for the thousands who died under his rule, not to steal land of wealth.”
Siyal’s face had gone pale as Flos spoke. He pointed a shaking finger at Flos.
“I will not listen to your lies. You are no worthy [King]. You dare to talk of a [King]’s duties when you abandoned your own kingdom? You—you have no right to speak of my father to me.”
Flos stared down at Siyal, that same cold disappointment in his expression. He shook his head slowly.
“You and I use the truth like blades. But I have the courage to face it. My failure and who I am does not change reality. Your father—”
“Silence!”
Siyal did draw his blade, then. And Orthenon and Mars did the same. They leapt off the throne’s dais, surrounding Siyal from both ends. He whirled to face them, face pale but jaw set.
“Orthenon. Mars. Enough.”
Flos stopped his vassals with one hand. He looked down at the [Prince] as Orthenon and Mars stepped back, sheathing their blades.
“You are fearless, Prince Siyal. Just like your father. But it takes more than courage to make a man. But at least you have that. Your father had neither.”
It was cruel. Flos’ words were harsh and cutting, and Trey saw the marks they left on Siyal. They cut deep, because Trey knew they were true. There was something in Flos’ voice, the way he spoke that made the truth self-evident. And some part of Siyal knew it.
The prince sheathed his sword. Tears stood out in the corners of his eyes as he glared up at Flos. His voice was rough, but steady.
“You have heard my message. Hellios declares war with Reim. My duty here is done. When we next meet, it will be under banner, bearing arms.”
He pointed at Flos.
“I will find you on the battlefield. I will hunt you down and claim your head with my sword.”
The King didn’t blink.
“I shall try to spare the effort to pick your face out from the legions of my enemies.”
He lifted a hand in dismissal. Siyal turned and stormed from the room, face crimson. All that time he had not glanced once at the twins. They were beneath his notice.
The two double doors closed behind Prince Siyal of Hellios, and Flos sat down slowly upon his throne. Only then did Mars and Orthenon turn to face him. After a second, Gazi stepped down and joined them.
And then Trey saw the curtains near one of the balconies move. He stared as Lady Maresar pushed them back. She calmly walked over to the others, putting an arrow back in the quiver at her side as she did.
Flos glanced at Maresar, at Gazi, and then the twins as they hesitantly came to stand before his throne. He smiled a bit at them, wearily.
“And so it begins.”
“War.”
This time Trey said the word and felt a chill. It was strange. One person said it, and suddenly it was true. He glanced at the doors Siyal had left through.
“Was he really a [Prince]?”
“Oh yes.”
Everyone in the room except for Teres nodded at once. Mars grinned as she tapped her chin.
“Did you see the way he kept it raised the entire time he was talking? The royals have a way of talking and standing that just screams their class. It makes you want to trip them whenever they walk past.”
Orthenon frowned at Mars before turning to Trey.
“I am surprised he came alone, but yes, that was [Prince] Siyal. Doubtless he must have come here against his mother’s wishes.”
“Calliope knows I would not stoop to ransoming her son.”
Flos looked mildly annoyed by the implication. Orthenon bowed to him.
“Of course. But the roads are not safe, my King. He must have rushed here.”
“I saw his horse as he rode in. It looked dead. That fool probably rode it at a gallop all the way here.”
Maresar’s lip curled and Flos shook his head. He sat with his straight against his throne, staring at the ceiling.
“Yet his message was plain, and perhaps warranted such actions, at least in his mind. War.”
“It has come at last.”
Gazi’s eyes glittered with excitement. Orthenon and Mars n
odded, and both looked…eager. It wasn’t a thought Trey would have associated with war, not in his world. But there was a spark of that in Maresar’s eyes, and when Flos looked down—
Trey could see it there too. That awful glimmer, that silent spark of terrible things. Terrible, glorious things.
“War.”
When he said it, Trey got goose bumps again. Only this time, Flos did not seize his sword and rush out of the room. Instead, he sighed.
“We have much to do.”
He looked at his steward.
“Orthenon, appraise me as we walk. Mars, spread the word. Lady Maresar, if you will send messengers to the furthest villages? We must ready my subjects to retreat behind the city’s walls at once. Gazi, be watchful as always. And you, Trey, Teres…”
He turned and the twins tensed with anticipation. Flos smiled.
“You have seen my kingdom in decay, at peace, such as it is. Now see it’s true heart. We prepare for war, at last. It is time to break my long slumber, my endless fast.”
He paused, and only Trey noticed the slight rolling of his eyes, and the look of chagrin on Flos’ face. He turned.
“Come. Follow.”
And they did.
—-
To Trey’s surprise, the rest of the day was not filled with people running about and general confusion. Oh, some people moved faster than normal, but Flos walked down his corridors at the same pace as always, and took time to greet the people he met as usual.
He had an explanation when Trey asked.
“War has been declared. But though Hellios is far closer than the lands of the Emperor of Sands, an army will not appear on my doorstep tomorrow. Or the day after, for that matter.”
“That is the convenience of a formal declaration of war.”
Orthenon nodded as he stepped out of a cluster of servants and messenger. He was the one working hardest, and Trey and Teres got to see exactly what going to war meant you had to do.
The first and most important thing was to make sure everyone knew there was a war going on. It wasn’t as if everyone had a telephone—or a [Mage] capable to receiving a [Message] spell. Within the hour, people on horseback were racing to all parts of the kingdom, bearing the news of war.
