Fate War: Alliance

by E. M. Havens

  “Now you’re going to listen,” Cole said in the calmest voice he could muster. “I don’t think you know how special your daughter is.”

  “Of course my daughter is special,” the Queen said, aghast.

  “I sincerely doubt you understand what I’m talking about after attempting to squelch her genius with corsets and conciliatory banter.”

  “Genius, pah!” The Queen dismissed him with a wave of the hand and turned back to the couch. Something had passed through her eyes just before she moved.

  “Yes, genius.” Cole pushed and followed her across the room to demand her acceptance. “Among other things, Sam has an eidetic memory. She can recall everything she has read or seen, and even heard. Your daughter also has abilities I can’t account for scientifically. The closest term I can come to is savant. Have you even heard of that?”

  The Queen waved him off again. “No, I haven’t. This is all nonsense.” She turned a steely gaze on him, but the same fear he saw before tainted her eyes.

  “I have.” Sam whispered and left the stairs. Cole wrapped a protective arm around her waist. She was trembling.

  “Of course you haven’t dear.” Queen Adella patronized.

  “Do savants run in families?” Sam queried of Cole.

  “Probably.” Cole curtly replied. Now was not the time for her endless curiosity.

  The Queen took Sam’s arm. “Now let’s take you back up stairs and make you app –”

  “No.” Though quiet, the finality of the word resonated through the room. “And you lie.”

  Sam dislodged herself from the grip Cole hadn’t realized he had so tight on her, and from her mother’s. “You’ve heard savant before, Mother.”

  “No. No, I haven’t.” The Queen tried to keep her voice steady, but the twinge of fear in her eyes was overtaking her schooled composure.

  “You can’t lie to me mother.” Sam growled. The Perspician guards stood at the ready to defend their Queen. “You see, Cole is right about me. I’m very, very special. Most people, they see a pattern like a letter and connect it with a sound. They see a pattern of a few letters and connect it with a word, an idea. Me? The page in a book is a pattern that I can recognize as easily as you can your own name. I see patterns in everything mother, numbers, machines, and animals all have them. Everything behaves according to pre-set parameters.” Sam’s lip curled in a menacing sneer, and she began pacing a slow circle around her mother. “Even people.”

  Once, Cole witnessed a boiler explode. The incident began with bone rattling tremors much like Sam’s now. When the pressure was too great, rivets burst and seams split, killing the men closest instantly, as scalding steam and fragments of metal decimated them. Cole took a step back from the overheating Sam, not wanting to be in the blast radius.

  “You’re lying mother. I can read it as clearly as words on a page. You know a savant. Cole said I was one, and that provided the final piece to a pattern I’ve missed for quite a while. It all makes sense now. Why you didn’t allow instruments in the castle, keeping me from the tinkers and advanced tutors, the chastity belt.” The last word she spat out like rotten fish. “Why you insisted on The Verification when King Arnold pleaded for its removal from the pact. Why you would have me tortured at that school to keep my secret. Actually, to keep your secret. The secret you’ve worked so diligently to keep from me and everyone else. Say it mother. Say you know a savant. Say it!” The words screeched like steam whistling through a burst rivet.

  The Queen clutched at her bodice and spun in a tight circle at the center of Sam’s pacing. Unexpectedly, she waved off her guards, sending them outside. Her eyes pleaded to Cole to do the same. In that moment he was struck by how much the Queen resembled Sam in the way her emotions played across her face. Cole obliged and sent his guards out of the room as well.

  “I know a savant.” The Queen whimpered. “Please, Samantha…Sam. Stop talking.”

  “Fine. You talk. Who is a savant mother?” Sam stopped her circling and stalked toward the Queen, face red in burning fury. Cole wasn’t fond of this particular shade. “Who did you call a savant, Mother. Who!”

  “Ja…Jasper.” Queen Adella stammered. “Please, Sam. Stop this.”

  “Who is Jasper, Mother?”

  “I had to protect the kingdom. I had to protect you!”

  “Say it. Tell me the truth. Say who he is. Say it!”

  Queen Adella’s answer was so soft Cole could have mistaken it, but he didn’t.

  “Your father.”

  When Sam blew, Cole expected the emotional shrapnel to be aimed at the Queen. Instead his fuming wife stormed through the door and down the front steps through the gathering of red and blue guards. A few moments later, she barreled bareback across the lawn atop Freedom, and out of sight.

  “Torture. What silly things that girl will come up with. I would hardly consider writing lines and withholding dessert torture. Although, it looks like she could go without dessert a little more often, actually.” The Queen stated flippantly, trying to sound unaffected by her scandalous admission. The wringing of her hands and quivering mouth blared the truth.

  Cole had never hit a woman, but the Queen sorely tempted him. She would, however, incur his verbal wrath.

  “You slag-hag,” he spat. “Sit down and shut up. There are things you need to know.”

  Hay prickled Sam’s legs through the fabric of her riding pants, its rich odor combined with manure and ammonia wrapped her in a warm blanket of familiarity against the cold of reality. Freedom snuffled softly in the corner of the stall. The horse came to lip her hair ever so often, checking on her. Sprocket sat with gold wings drooped, spindly legs splayed on her knee, mirroring her mood.

  The reckless ride through the countryside at dusk had done little to ease the turmoil in Sam’s mind and heart. She should be angry at her mother. The woman had stifled Sam since birth to protect her own infidelity. She should be worried about the ramifications of discovering Jasper was her father, and the affects it would have on The Alliance. She should be crying or screaming, but she could do neither.

  All Sam could think about was Cole. Now that he knew she wasn’t a princess, would he abandon her? Her heart wanted to believe he wouldn’t, but her mind knew he never wanted this marriage. Now there was nothing keeping him in it. He could be free of her, and that terrified her more than impending war and dissolving treaties.

  “That’s not too safe there, Miss Sam.”

  The familiar voice shocked Sam out of her spiraling extrapolations.

  “Zeb.” she cried, recognizing the weathered face peering at her over the stall door.

  “The one and only, Miss.”

  “Zeb! How…when…” Sam couldn’t form a coherent sentence as she scrambled to extract herself from the nest of hay, but her legs wouldn’t work. She’d sat here most of the night and they had gone numb.

  “I’ll come to ya, Miss Sam.” Zeb chuckled at her fumbling and entered the stall. With a groan and the audible creak of joints, Zeb lowered himself beside her. Her arms found his neck and tears finally found her eyes.

  “Oh, Zeb,” Sam sobbed.

  “There now, Miss Sam.” He awkwardly patted her shoulder. He never was comfortable with this kind of affection. After a few moments, Sam gained some control and wiped her eyes.

  “And hello there to ya too, Sprocket.” The creature greeted Zeb with the zeal of an old dog too long separated from its master. Zeb hadn’t changed much over the years. A little more wrinkled and a little less of his completely gray hair, perhaps. The metal of his mechanical arm had tarnished as well. His kind eyes remained the same, and Sam couldn’t help but feel ten years old again sitting next to the wizened man.

  “I’ve missed you, Zeb,” Sam said affectionately.

  “And I you, Miss.” He ruffled her hair just like the child she felt like in his presence.

  “Why…how did you get here?” Sam asked.

  “Yer mother doesn’t keep me too far from her these days.
She lets me be her personal porter, seein’ as I’m no use in the stables no more. I came with her on the air ship. Don’t quite like travelin’ that way,” he said, removing his cap and scratching his head. Sam tried not to laugh at the strained look on his face as he recalled the journey.

  “That sounds quite generous of mother.” Sam was just beginning to see the reaches of the Queen’s injustices.

  “Hmph. It was that or kill me,” Zeb said the last under his breath. It was all Sam needed for her mind to start making connections.

  “You know,” she said, breathless.

  “I don’t know nothin’,” Zeb grumbled.

  “You know who my real father is,” she pressed.

  Zeb let out a long weary breath. “Yep. I know,” he conceded.

  “How?”

  “Let’s just say young lovers don’t pay much attention to who might be muckin’ the stall next to ‘em.”

  “Slag, Zeb! I could have done without that image,” Sam whined and punched him playfully in the shoulder.

  “You’d be surprised the things old Zeb’s seen and heard in them stables.” He rubbed his arm easing the mock pain. After a moment he let out another weary breath. “They were in love, them two.”

  “I don’t really want to hear this Zeb,” Sam groaned.

  “You need to.”

  She knew it already though. The lingering looks between her mother and Jasper, the palpable tension. At her young age, she just hadn’t known what the patterns meant. She could tell Zeb was waiting for her permission to continue so she signaled him to go on with an apathetic twitch of her hand.

  “It was young love, but love it was. Yer mother even used to help him tinker.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Sam interrupted.

  “It’s true. Don’t think I’d ever seen such affection as Jasper had for Miss Adie…Queen Adella, and her for him. I think I heard the sound of their hearts tearin’ in two the night her betrothal was announced to then Prince Augustus.”

  “I never knew my parents’ marriage was arranged.” Sam loathed the seed of sympathy that fact buried in her heart.

  “Back then, the Kingdom of Perspicia was in war against itself. That marriage bound the two sides and gave us peace.”

  “It doesn’t excuse what she did.”

  “No. No, it don’t. And Jasper weren’t about to stand by and see the same done to his little girl.”

  A new sorrow twinged in Sam’s chest. She had looked to Jasper as a father even when she didn’t know he was hers, and he had treated her as a daughter much the same. He left, rather than see her oppressed, rather than save her. Why didn’t he stay and help? Why join the Fate?

  “So he left?” Sam asked. She didn’t add the bit about him being Fate now. It didn’t feel right.

  “Hmph. He never would have left you, Miss Sam.”

  “But he did Zeb. That’s a fact.”

  “He ain’t here, but that don’t mean he left. I heard everything the night before he disappeared. Those two din’t bother checking to see who was in the stables that night neither. Yer mother didn’t want ya to suffer like her. She wanted to guarantee it with that contraption. That chastity belt. Jasper refused at first, but yer mother’s mind was made up. I can’t believe he went ahead and made it for ya. But I know as well as clinker stinks that Jasper never would have left. Not the way he loved you two.”

  Sam would have to think about that. Zeb made a point; he just didn’t know he did.

  “What am I supposed to do, Zeb?”

  “Don’t ask me. I’m just a stable hand. Guess I’m not even that anymore. Just wanted you to know how ya got here.”

  After a few moments of companionable silence, Sam helped Zeb to his feet.

  “Why don’t you manage the stables here? You can stay. Then you won’t have to travel in the air ship,” Sam teased.

  “Can’t muck stalls no more, Miss Sam.”

  “I said manage, that means you get to tell other people to muck stalls,” she chuckled. “It would be a joy to have you near.”

  “That’d be an interesting change for an old ashpan like me. But, what about Queen Adella?”

  “She’ll do as I say from now on.” Sam had not lost sight of the very large bargaining chip she now held over her mother. She kissed him on the cheek, which he accepted hesitantly, and they left the stable for their perspective quarters.

  Sam expected all in the house to be asleep at this late hour, but to her surprise Queen Adella was awake and waiting.

  “Not tonight. I’m tired, mother,” Sam said blearily, and brushed past her toward the stairs.

  “I’m sorry,” her mother choked out. Sam stopped with one foot on the stairs and closed her eyes. This is the last thing she wanted to hear from her mother. She wasn’t sure why, but it was. She started to ascend the stairs again without a word.

  “I didn’t know,” her mother cried. “Please believe me. I didn’t know what they were doing to you at the school! Sam, please!” Sam stopped halfway up the stairs, and turned to see her mother melted into a pool of satin and ruffles in the sitting room floor, hiccupping through tearful sobs.

  “Mother, it doesn’t matter what they did to change me. You sent me there to be changed, to protect yourself.”

  “No!” Her mother scrambled to her feet and clung to the banister looking up at her with tearful eyes. “It was for our country. For you. To save you from a fate like mine.”

  The Queen believed it. Sam could see it. Her mother still believed she did the right thing.

  “Well done, Mother,” Sam began to ascend the stairs again. “Your secret’s safe with me for now. Our fate is in Cole’s hands.”

  “He won’t tell. He loves you, you know.”

  Sam stopped at the top of the stairs. “Leave, Mother. I want you gone by sunrise,” Sam said with as much feeling as ordering lunch.

  “Can you forgive me?” the Queen pleaded from the bottom of the stairs. The words were like daggers as they hit Sam’s back.

  “Yes. But not tonight. Don’t be here when I wake. Oh, and Zeb stays.”

  “But – “

  “He stays.”

  Sam took the last step and dragged herself down the hall, exhaustion setting in. Her mother said Cole loved her. She wasn’t so sure. His desire for her was evident, but love? He had never said it, and though lies were easy to see for her, other human interactions were difficult. She hesitated with her handon the door handle to their room.

  This was the first time she hadn’t known where she stood with him. Even in her previously deluded state, he couldn’t reject her completely because of the Alliance. Now he could. Even if he didn’t discard her now, it may only be to preserve the Alliance. Letting her hand slip from the handle, Sam took the back staircase to the kitchen, then outside. Her new shop awaited, and a little tinkering would clear her head.

  ****

  “Thank you, Nana,” Cole slurred through a yawn and took the tea kettle from his old nurse maid who shuffled back into the house. He would bet his crown the old woman stayed up late, eavesdropping. He poured steaming water over a mesh sphere in his cup containing, what he hoped, were potent enough herbs to keep him awake the rest of the day. It was a late night. He stayed up waiting for Sam, but she never came to him. It was disorienting waking up without her this morning. He allowed himself a small grin at how dependent he had become on her presence. The grin didn’t stay long as the weight of recent discoveries pressed it down.

  Cole thought she would need him last night; for comfort, encouragement. When he found Sam asleep in the tinker shop this morning, he didn’t wake her, thinking she needed her space and sleep. Since then something niggled on the edge of his thoughts. He was willing to keep the secret of her parentage, but was she?

  “Prince Cole?”

  A familiar voice startled him out of his half dozing, half contemplating. He really needed to drink that tea.

  “Captain Jensen.” Cole acknowledged the soldier, and clasped hands wi
th the man over the breakfast table, then gestured for him to sit. “What brings you by, Captain?”

  “Well, Sir, we never left. My men and I waited until the Princess returned, then decided to stay the night.”

  “Thank you for your consideration.” Cole nodded, and sipped his tea.

  “We were already on our way when we spotted the air ship. I was to deliver your dossier.” Captain Jensen handed over the familiar leather bound folder. Cole hefted it, not remembering it being so weighty.

  “Thank you, Captain.” Cole said in dismissal, and took a bite of toast. The tea hadn’t cleared the fog in his mind yet, and it was a few moments before he realized Jensen was still seated at the table. “Is there something else?” he asked, around a mouthful of breakfast.

  “Sir..ehem…Lord Cole…” Jensen looked like he was watching a bumble bee dance and shifted in his chair. Leaning forward and lowering his voice, he addressed the prince. “Sir, it may be none of my business…No, it is my business, but…” He rubbed the back of his neck, stammering.

  “Speak freely, Jensen.” Cole put the man out of his misery. The Captain slouched in relief, or what was considered a slouch for the normally ramrod straight Jensen.

  “Sir, I don’t believe it’s wise to let the Princess ride alone…at dusk…in an area known to recently have Fate scouts.”

  Cole tossed his toast back on the plate, and sat back in his chair. He was so angry last night at Queen Adella he hadn’t given a second thought to Sam’s safety. He was such an idiot.

  “I agree, Jensen. But I don’t think there is any ‘let’ to it. Princess Samantha can do what she wants, when she wants.”

  The Captain’s brow dipped slightly at this statement, but he quickly recovered his chiseled expression. “Perhaps, some basic self-defense would be in order then.”

  Cole couldn’t think of any reason not to. Actually, he could probably use a little practice himself. He had barely won the duel with that Fate soldier. It was Cole’s luck that his opponent had been injured when he took a tumble in his mechman.