“Quite the turnout,” Kyle said as the Equites were surrounded by Imperial Guards.
“Wonder why,” Chevalier chuckled, and followed them in to the palace. Outside of the council chamber doors, more Imperial Guards joined them.
Mark tensed and gave the silent signal for his Cavalry to watch the Elder carefully.
“You may go in,” the door guard said, and opened the set of old wooden doors.
Chevalier walked in first, followed by Kyle, Mark, and the Cavalry.
Sotomar looked down at them from the stand, “What have we here?”
“Nice welcoming committee,” Chevalier mentioned, and looked at the 32 Imperial Guards.
“Surely you understand. After what your visit did for the Encala, we had to protect ourselves.”
“Yes, I understand. Now… the reason we came was because you are stupid.”
Valle Elder Ryan’s eyes narrowed, “Excuse me?”
“You know she’s back,” Kyle growled. “Now leave her alone.”
Sotomar smiled, “So it’s true?”
Chevalier crossed his arms, “Yes, Emily’s back, no thanks to your faction.”
“What are we being blamed for now?” Sotomar asked.
“Salazar didn’t have Alexis,” Chevalier explained angrily. “He had Emily hostage for 2 years.”
Sotomar gasped, “He did not!”
“Yes, he did. She’s extremely traumatized after the horrors she went through, and it’s not helping when she sees gray capes!” Kyle yelled.
The Valle Council turned and started talking among themselves. Chevalier looked at Kyle and rolled his eyes. After only a few minutes, they turned around and Sotomar stood up.
“We don’t believe you.”
“You don’t have to believe us,” Kyle said. “However, every Valle we see will be dealt with harshly.”
“I want to hear it for myself from Emily that the accusations are true.”
Chevalier glanced at Kyle and then sighed, “She’s non-verbal.”
“She is?” Ryan asked, frowning.
“Yes”
“What did he do then?” Sotomar whispered, and sat back down.
“We aren’t going to share the humiliation that he put Emily through.”
Sotomar gasped, “He…”
Chevalier glared at him, “Leave her alone so she can recover.”
“Maybe we can help.”
“You’ve done enough. We had her out on horseback for therapy and when your goons arrived, she got so upset she had a seizure,” Kyle said. “Leave us alone or the Equites will have to take more action.”
“You’re threatening us?” Ryan asked.
“Yes, we are,” Kyle replied. “When it comes to the Winchester, we’re taking no prisoners any more. We were too lenient with the Encala when Emily was alive before, and trust me, it won’t happen again.”
Sotomar stood up again, “I want to see her.”
“Are you even listening?” Mark growled.
“Yes, and I don’t believe it. If Salazar had Emily, then I’m sure she was well cared for and in comfort.”
“Yeah, cages are the new in-thing for comfort!” Mark yelled.
Kyle calmed him down with a glance, “We don’t have to prove anything to you. Just know that if you don’t back off, the Valle are next.”
“Get out!” Ryan ordered.
Chevalier smiled, “Not until I talk to Reed.”
“We don’t know a Reed,” Sotomar said. “You may go.”
Chevalier crossed his arms and the Cavalry fell into a defensive posture, “Not until I speak to Reed.”
“We don’t…”
“Yes you do,” Kyle growled. “Bring him to us now.”
“We haven’t interrogated him yet.”
“He’s ours… or we call for the rest of our army,” Chevalier told him.
“We won’t be bullied!”
“Too late. Do it or we’ll come get him.”
Sotomar turned and spoke quickly to the other Elders, and when he faced the Equites, he was livid, “Bring Reed here.”
One of the guards blurred away and returned a few minutes later with a haggard looking heku in torn gray robes. He pushed the heku to his knees in front of the Council.
“Why is the Equites requesting you be turned over to them?” Sotomar asked him.
He looked up at Chevalier’s menacing presence, “I… I… don’t… I don’t know.”
“What will we get in repayment for turning over a valuable prisoner to the Equites?” their Chief of Staff asked.
“You get to comfortably stay in your palace without fear of an immediate retaliation for your lack of cooperation,” Kyle told them.
Sotomar watched them, “We want Emily to call us when she’s well.”
“As your repayment for this?”
“Yes”
“What if she doesn’t want to?” Chevalier asked. “We’re not forcing her to do anything.”
“Then… then we will deal with that when the time comes.”
Kyle chuckled, “Deal.”
“Now kindly get out of my City,” Ryan hissed.
***
“Lady Emily, where are we going?” one of the guards asked uneasily when she appeared from her room. They were assured by the Council that by guarding Emily’s door, they wouldn’t have any interaction with her.
She looked at them and frowned slightly.
“We’re City Guards. You probably don’t know us.”
She watched them carefully and leaned back against the bedroom door as they shifted nervously.
“What’s in your hand?” one of them asked her. Emily brought her balled fist up to her chest and held it tightly.
“Get that doctor,” one of the City Guards said.
“Elder Chevalier told them to leave for a while,” the highest ranking reminded him.
“Then… no Cavalry is left?”
“No, Elder Zohn left with them to go find out why the Codale Coven isn’t talking anymore.”
“So…” He turned and looked at Emily, “What do we do with her?”
“I don’t know. Follow her wherever she goes?”
“She’s not going anywhere though. She’s just standing there.”
“Do you need something?” the guard asked, louder and slower than before.
Emily inched past the guards and timidly headed for the stairs.
“Can’t you just go back into your bedroom?” the closest one asked.
She ignored them and slowly headed down the stairs as she continuously surveyed around her.
Derrick smiled when he saw her, “Good evening, Emily. Do you need to speak to the Council?”
She stopped a few yards from him and looked at him closely.
“She’s not talking,” the highest ranking City Guard said.
Derrick nodded, “I know. Go on in, Em.”
Derrick opened the door and the Council fell silent when Emily stopped at the door and looked carefully around the council chambers.
“Come in, Lady Emily,” the Chief Interrogator said, waving her in.
She took one step into the room and then stopped, flinching slightly when Derrick shut the door behind her.
“Is there a problem?” the Chief of Staff asked.
“We don’t know. She’s not saying,” the City Commander said, bowing slightly.
“Emily, what’s wrong?” the Records Keeper asked.
Emily carefully scanned the Council again and her eyes fell on a strange, dark-skinned heku sitting where Dustin used to.
The Chief Interrogator followed her gaze and then turned back to her, “Dustin was replaced. This is Akili.”
“Nice to meet you, Child,” Akili said to her.
The Chief of Finance quickly whispered to Akili, and he nodded and then turned back to her.
“Emily, is there a problem?” the Chief Interrogator asked. He studied her face carefully to see if he could tell what was wrong, “Elder Quinn is attending
a ceremony tonight. He’ll only be gone for a few hours.”
She watched them, again scanning their eyes and standing perfectly still.
The Court Reporter smiled, “Come closer, Child.”
One of the City Guards put a hand on her back and pushed softly. She finally took fearful steps until she was standing closer to the Council.
“What’s in your hand?” the Chief Investigator asked her.
“She won’t tell us,” the Commander said again.
The Chief of Staff looked at him, “You may stop talking now.”
The Commander’s eyes grew wide and he nodded.
“May I see?” the Chief of Defense asked, holding out his hand.
Emily walked forward hesitantly and then held her hand out to reveal Chevalier’s Elder pin and Kyle’s Chief Enforcer pin.
He frowned, “You shouldn’t have those. It’s not proper for you to even touch them.”
She looked down at them and gasped when they disappeared from her hand.
“We’ll give those back. Thank you for returning them,” the Faction Liaison Officer said with a smile.
Emily took a step back, still looking at her empty hand.
“What’s wrong?”
The heku could hear Emily’s heart begin to race and her breathing picked up.
“We don’t understand what the problem is.”
She glanced at her sides and saw the strange heku guards, then scanned the Council and saw none of them that she was close to.
“Why don’t you go back to your room?” the Chief of Staff suggested. “We will send Elder Quinn up when he returns.”
When she didn’t start to move, one of the City Guards took her arm and carefully pulled her out of the Council Chambers.
The Chief of Staff smiled, “I’m sure she just wanted to return the pins.”
“I wonder how she got them, it’s not proper,” the Chief Investigator said.
“No, she wasn’t here to return the pins,” Richard, the Chief Interrogator said. “I don’t know what she wanted, but it wasn’t to give back the pins.”
“Why else hold them out to us?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they represent the Elder and Chief Enforcer.”
“So what does it mean then?”
“That she wants to know where they are maybe.”
“You got that out of her expressions?” the Chief of Defense asked.
Richard shook his head, “No, I got nothing from that. That’s just a guess.”
The Council was discussing new staffing when Quinn returned 4 hours later. The Elder sat down and sighed, “That was boring.”
“Sorry, there wasn’t much exciting here either,” the Chief of Staff said.
Richard looked at Quinn, “Emily visited us though.”
Quinn gasped, “She did?”
“Yes, we aren’t sure why, but she did bring us these,” the Faction Liaison Officer said as he held out the rank pins.
Quinn took them, “She handed these over?”
“Yes”
“No,” Richard said. “I told you, she didn’t come here to give us these pins, and she was most upset when you took them.”
“She was not! She came to give them to us.”
Quinn looked down at them, “I’ll go take them back to her.”
“It’s not proper for her to have those.”
He glared at the Faction Liaison Officer, “Do not ever take anything from Emily.”
“Yes, Elder.”
Quinn angrily stood up and stormed out of the council chamber. He stopped in front of Emily’s door and the knocked softly, “Emily, it’s me, Quinn.”
When he heard no noise, he opened the door and walked in. He looked briefly around the empty room and then peeked into the bathroom. When he found no one, he turned to the guards, “Where is she?”
“She was in here,” he said, and looked around the room.
“When’s the last time you saw her?”
“It was about 4 hours ago, Elder.”
“Spread out, find her,” Quinn ordered. He heard the call for help and suddenly, the palace came alive with heku searching for Emily.
***
“You will talk, Boy,” Mark growled as he hauled the gray robed heku into the Equites palace.
“Take him to the regular prison for now,” Chevalier said. “I want to check on things before we find out why the whisperer told us to talk to him.”
“Right away,” Horace said, ordering two members of the Cavalry to take him to a cell.
“Oh good, you’re back,” Zohn said, blurring up to them. “We can’t find Emily.”
Kyle inhaled sharply, “You what?”
“I was out at the Codale Coven with Kralen and Silas. Quinn left for only a few hours and there was a small problem with Emily and the Council, and now we can’t find her.”
“Who was watching her?” Chevalier asked angrily.
“City Guards. They left the council chambers and went back to her room. Four hours later, Quinn went to check on her and she was gone.”
“I’m starting to think she has a secret passageway into the kitchen,” Chevalier said, immediately heading toward it.
“We tried that. We can’t find her.”
“The bar?” Kyle asked.
Zohn nodded, “Tried that.”
“She can’t have gotten far,” Kyle said as Chevalier tried to catch Emily’s scent. “The doors are all guarded.”
“No one saw her leave. Alexis doesn’t think she’d leave on her own… but…” It was obvious that Zohn was hesitating.
“What?” Chevalier asked, turning to see what Zohn was worried about.
“Emily came to the Council and held out your rank pins.”
“Ok”
“Brisben took them.”
“Why would he do that!?” Chevalier yelled.
“He was just following proper procedure. She’s not allowed to have them.”
“I don’t give a damn about procedures.”
“Neither do we. Quinn went to take them back to her, and that’s when they found she’d gone.”
Kyle shook with anger, “Those are hers in case she’s taken again!”
“I know,” Zohn said, and opened the door into the kitchen.
After a quick search, it was realized that Emily wasn’t going to be easy to find. There were 73 heku looking for her, and Mark had ordered the Cavalry to scour the city and trees to see if they could catch sign of her.
Chevalier stopped after an hour of searching and calmed himself enough to think.
Kyle caught up with him a few minutes later, “This would be much easier if you’d bond again so you could read her.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought about that. If I could see her dreams, we might know what’s going on in her head.”
“Have you asked her?”
“No, I haven’t. I don’t think she’d agree to be fed from. Not to mention, last time it took quite a while before I could see her dreams and feel her emotions.”
“Then it strengthened after you gave her more blood to outweigh what Vaughn gave her.”
Chevalier looked at him with wide eyes.
Kyle shrugged, “I figured it out.”
“Anyway,” Chevalier said, changing the subject. “She has to be here.”
“Did you ask Alexis about how Emily gets down to the kitchen?”
“Yes, and she’s not giving in.”
“So let’s get the blueprints for the palace and have a look,” Kyle suggested. Before he heard a response, Chevalier headed up to the Record Keeper’s office. He knocked lightly.
“Enter,” Jerry said. The Record Keeper looked up at the Elder, “Oh, hello, Sir. Can I help you?”
“Yes, I need palace blueprints.”
“Not that easy to get to. They are kept in the vault,” Jerry explained.
Chevalier sighed and looked around Jerry’s office while he thought. The most important documents for the faction were kept over f
ifty feet below the ground in a large cement vault. It was located directly below the cemetery. To retrieve a document, not only did you have to dig for it, but you had to work around the heku’s dead, retired, and banished.
It had been so long since any heku had been to the Equites vault, that it was even rumored to be guarded by one of the original Equites Ancients, who stayed below and drank from the creatures of the ground to stay satiated.
“There has to be a passageway from your room, or at least somewhere by your room, to the kitchen,” Kyle said, deep in thought.
“She’s been gone for 12 hours though,” Chevalier told him. “She could be in Ohio by now.”
“Let’s…” Kyle stopped talking when the Chief of Staff reported finding Emily in the kitchen.
Chevalier, Kyle, Mark, and Zohn immediately headed that direction and all blurred to the kitchen together.
The heku immediately caught Emily’s scent and fell silent. They walked forward and heard her in the far corner of the kitchen. When they found her, she was hunkered down in the corner, feverishly eating a cracker.
“Em?” Chevalier asked softly.
She gasped and hid the crackers behind her back when she slowly turned around.
“Are you hungry?” Kyle asked, moving forward to start making her a sandwich.
She watched him and they could tell she was starting to panic.
Chevalier studied her carefully before speaking, “Can I have the crackers?”
She slowly brought her hand out from behind her back and then handed the almost full bag of crackers over to him. When he got closer, he noticed her lips were dry and cracked.
Mark growled from the doors of the kitchen. Chevalier looked over as he thumbed through the chef’s logs.
“What’s wrong?” Chevalier asked, stepping closer to him.
“These logs are all marked ‘no orders’ for the last four days!”
“What?” he growled, and took the logs to look at them. The chefs had come in each day, but it was listed that no orders were taken.
“They didn’t feed her?” Zohn asked, frowning.
“Doesn’t look like it,” Chevalier said. He turned back to Emily and sighed, “Em… no.”
Emily was facing the wall of the kitchen, again topless with her overalls down around her hips. Her hands were crossed high above her head and she was breathing rapidly.
Eternity of Vengeance (Extended Edition) : Book 7 of the Heku Series Page 68
