by Morgan Rice
She felt the tension there in Stephania in that moment, still, but only still because she was holding herself there. She had the tension of a strung bow, or a deer ready to bolt.
Ahead of her, she saw the guards spread out, obviously trying to find a way to help. Ceres kept Stephania between her and them.
“Put it down, or they’ll kill you,” Stephania said.
“I can still rid the world of you,” Ceres said. “If I’m going to die anyway, why not?”
“Because…” She heard Stephania gasp the words out. “Because you’d be killing Thanos’s child!”
Ceres let go of her out of pure shock, and Stephania leapt away from her, rubbing her throat. Ceres could see a line of blood there where the sharp edge of the shard had scratched her.
The guards rushed forward then, grabbing for her, one striking her in the stomach. From her knees, Ceres looked up at Stephania.
“No,” Ceres said. “You’re lying.”
“You didn’t hear the news then?” Stephania snapped back. “Of course you didn’t. A little fool like you doesn’t care about the important things.”
“What news?” Ceres demanded. “That you’re a liar? I knew that already.”
She saw Stephania smile broadly. “That Thanos and I are married.”
Ceres wasn’t sure that any words could have hurt her more. She stood there, and an answer wouldn’t come. She couldn’t think of anything to say. She couldn’t believe that it was true. Finally, she found the breath to speak.
“No,” she said. “It’s a lie. Thanos would never do that!”
“Really?” Stephania countered. “Ask any of the servants here. Ask anyone you like. I’ll summon them. Call it to any of the guards. It was the biggest event of the season. They were all there.”
Ceres tried to think of a way that it could still be a lie, but there wasn’t one. If it were a lie, Stephania would have tried to control this. Even so, it was almost impossible to believe.
“Thanos would never have married you,” she said. “Not unless someone forced him.”
“Not only did he marry me,” Stephania said, “he was the one who asked me. With you gone, we were very happy. He was happy.”
“Then where is he?” Ceres countered. “Bring him here. Have him tell me this.”
Anger flashed across Stephania’s features then. “He’s gone, thanks to you. Thanks to everything you set in motion. He had to leave, and if you had just had the grace to stay dead, to not bring… this down on the city, then he would still have been here with me and our child.”
Ceres almost, almost felt a moment of pity for Stephania then, but the hardness of Stephania’s expression quickly changed that.
“That’s why you’re going to pay,” Stephania said. Ceres saw her glance down at the courtyard. “Oh look, I believe they’ve reached someone you care about. Look, go on.” She raised her voice. “Look, or I’ll have the guards force you to.”
Ceres stood and looked. What she saw there made her heart break. Anka was still strapped to the post where she’d been at the start. It was obvious that the stress of standing there tied for so long was agony.
And now one of the executioners was approaching her.
He had a long length of wood, and Ceres couldn’t work out what he was planning to do until the moment when he fitted it into the rope holding Anka to the post by her throat.
“No,” Ceres said.
“Yes,” Stephania replied.
“You—”
“This is nothing to do with me,” Stephania said. “This is Lucious, but occasionally, he does have his uses. Do you know that he asked to marry me? Oh, I won’t be saying yes, but it’s nice to know how he thinks, isn’t it?”
She was babbling on as if this were just a pleasant conversation, rather than a precursor to one of Ceres’s friends being killed.
Meanwhile, the executioner was starting to twist the wooden lever, turning the rope, pulling it tighter. He did it as though it was nothing, without a flicker of expression.
“Stop this,” Ceres begged. “Stop this. I’ll do anything.”
“There’s nothing you could do that I would want,” Stephania said.
Below, Ceres saw Anka trying to struggle against her bonds. Once more, Ceres tried to summon her powers. Surely for this, for her friend… but no, there was no sign of the strength or energy that had been there before.
“Besides,” Stephania said, “as I said, this is down to Lucious. We’re nothing but observers. I must admit, I was a little put off by the screaming at first, but when it occurred to me that you would be suffering, I got over it.”
Ceres threw herself in Stephania’s direction, but the noblewoman had placed herself deliberately out of reach. All Ceres could do was stand there and watch while Anka fought for breath, then kicked, trying to get away.
She went still, and Ceres collapsed against the balcony railing.
She couldn’t breathe right then. Ceres felt as though the world had stopped spinning; as though none of it made sense. It shouldn’t be that easy to lose someone. Guilt and sorrow fought inside her, each trying to find space in which to fill her. Ceres had been the one to talk them into rising up like that, after all. If she hadn’t…
But there was no taking it back. Anka was gone. Just like that, one of the few people she’d been able to call a friend was dead, taken from her as if it didn’t even matter. She’d been so vibrant, so important to the rebellion, and the Empire had killed her. Lucious had killed her.
And Stephania had stood by to let it happen.
“I’ll kill you,” Ceres promised. “Whatever else happens, I’ll kill you for this.”
“And leave Thanos distraught?” Stephania countered. “You wouldn’t do that.”
She would, though. Looking down at the still form of Anka below, she would. The worst part was that the executioner just left her there, abandoning her while he moved on to another member of the rebellion. To him, killing someone as special as Anka was nothing more than a function to be performed.
Somewhere in it, Stephania called the guards who’d brought Ceres there. Ceres didn’t even notice her do it. She was too busy staring down at the scene below.
“I’ll say this,” Stephania said. “Lucious may be a mindless thug, but when it comes to making people suffer, he does have his uses.”
The guards took hold of Ceres’s chains, dragging her to her feet like some kind of marionette.
“Just kill me,” Ceres said. “Just… end it.”
“Oh, not yet, I think,” Stephania replied, and Ceres could hear the malice there behind the sweetness. “For one thing, I’m sure Lucious has all kinds of things he’ll want to do with a prisoner like you, and I’m not inclined to anger him by taking his toys from him. For another…” Stephania’s expression hardened. “I want you to suffer. I want you to suffer until there’s nothing left of you. Until you can’t even remember what it was like to be free, or safe, or happy. After everything you’ve done, you deserve it.”
She signaled, and Ceres felt the guards start to drag her to the door. If she could have broken free then, she would have, either to kill Stephania or kill herself, she didn’t know which. Maybe both, grabbing her and throwing them from the balcony together in some kind of final fall.
It didn’t matter. Seeing Anka die like that seemed to have drained the last dregs of strength from her, so that Ceres could barely stand, let alone fight her way free. She felt like dead weight, held up only by the efforts of her captors.
“Oh, there’s one last thing,” Stephania said, and she made it sound almost like an afterthought. Perhaps, to her, it was. “Your brother.”
“Sartes?” Ceres said. “What have you done with him?”
“I was going to do this quietly, just to get rid of the last reminders of you,” Stephania went on, as though Ceres hadn’t spoken. “With you back, though, it provides another lovely way to hurt you. Your friends are dying, you are imprisoned, Thanos married me, and y
our brother… well, dear Sartes will soon find himself boiling in tar. Enjoy that thought, Ceres. I know I will.”
Filled with despair, Ceres wanted to scream, more than anything.
But she didn’t even have the strength for that as they dragged her away, her mouth stuck open in a silent wail of anguish.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
King Claudius forced himself to sit as still as a statue on the throne in his chambers, pushing down the anger, the confusion, the sorrow he felt until he could have been just another of the statues of his ancestors, sitting behind him like judging ghosts.
King Claudius had spent a long time considering where he should hold this audience. His wife had suggested the main throne room, but Athena always did have a flair for the dramatic. Lucious would probably have argued against doing it at all had Claudius bothered asking him, because the boy didn’t understand the idea of respecting one’s enemies.
But Thanos…
“I will not think of him,” King Claudius told himself. “I will not.”
Willing a thing and achieving it were two different things, though, even for him. One of his tutors had once had him read the work of the philosopher Phelekon, from the early Empire. What had he written?
There are some things that even a king may not rule, and his own heart is first among them.
At the time, Claudius had assumed it was some kind of subtle jibe aimed at him. Now, he understood.
His hands tightened on the arms of the throne as the doors to the room opened. Lord West walked in then, his wrists chained, flanked by a pair of Claudius’s personal guard. He looked weary, and far from his best, his gray hair streaked with dirt, his clothes marred by blood. Still, the other man managed a crisp bow.
One of the guards went to push him down to his knees, but Claudius stopped him with a raised hand.
“That is enough. More than enough. I told you to bring the Lord of the Northern Coast to me, not to drag him here in chains like some slave. Remove those.”
“Your majesty,” the other guard said, “he might prove dangerous if—”
“I gave you a command,” the king said, letting his tone become like ice. “Remove the manacles, and then leave us. See that we are not disturbed. By anyone. If you have to hold back my son himself, you will do it.”
Now, the guards rushed to obey. That was the point of strength. Of being feared. King Claudius watched Lord West stand impassively as the men removed his chains. Even defeated, even at his age, he stood with the upright bearing of a soldier until the men left, closing the door behind them.
Claudius gestured to a chair he’d had set near the throne. It was smaller and lower, but it was still graceful. Still comfortable. There was a table between the two, with a decanter on it and two goblets.
“Sit down,” he said. “I think we have a lot to talk about.”
“Is that a command, my king?” Lord West asked, still standing stiffly.
“A request,” Claudius replied. “The events of the last days suggest that you don’t take royal commands all that seriously anymore.” When Lord West still hesitated, Claudius sighed. “Damn it, sit down, West. You’re making my neck ache staring up at you, and if I have to stand, I suspect my knees will be worse. Pour wine while you’re at it. I know I need it.”
That, at least, got a smile from the other man. He sat, and Claudius waited while he poured. He couldn’t help noticing that Lord West had as many lines on his hands as his own did.
He hesitated, a pit in his throat.
Then, finally, he said it.
“You know I can’t let you live,” Claudius said.
His words hung in the air, echoing in the chamber.
It was a hard thing to have to say to a friend like this, even with all the deaths he’d ordered over the course of his rule. Better to get it out of the way. Have done with it quickly.
Lord West nodded, solemn, noble, resigned.
“I know. I knew what it meant when I agreed to attack Delos.”
Claudius nodded.
“And yet you still did it.”
“I still did it,” West agreed.
He didn’t seem to want to offer more than that. Couldn’t the man open up just for once? Claudius found himself sitting there, not wanting to get this over with now. There were so many things that only his old friend would understand.
“When did we get old, West?” Claudius asked.
“I believe it’s an ongoing process,” Lord West replied. “The part I find difficult is the division between what my head tells me I should be able to do and what my body can keep up with.”
Claudius nodded. He understood that as well as anyone. “I look in mirrors sometimes and I wonder who that old man is there. In my head, I’m still a twenty-year-old, dashing about the outer reaches of the Empire, fighting off Kauthli raiders.”
“And falling off his horse,” Lord West said.
“We said we were never going to mention that again,” Claudius pointed out, but he laughed along with the other man, because even the embarrassing memories were good ones. They were reminders of what felt like a simpler time. “To be honest, I’m surprised that you feel the same way. Even then, I had the impression that you were secretly middle-aged, and you were just waiting for your body to catch up. You were always so serious.”
Lord West quirked an eyebrow. “By which, of course, you mean that I was the one sober enough to get us back to our tents by morning occasionally.”
“That too,” Claudius admitted. How many times had it happened? More than enough that it blended together in memories of West guiding him, and occasionally just carrying him. He nodded to West’s wine. “You haven’t drunk yet.”
Surely his old friend didn’t think that he would poison him?
“I’m waiting for you,” West said. “Unless he is a food taster, a man does not drink before his king, or his host.”
“Always so obsessed with the proper way to do things,” Claudius said, but took a sip of his wine anyway. “Better?”
“Much,” West said. Claudius watched while he took in the scent of his wine, then drank deeply. “Elphrim Red. Very good Elphrim Red. That brings back memories.”
“Mostly of you holding up our entire battalion while those dancing priests completed their ceremony to let us onto the salt plain without a ‘curse,’” Claudius replied. “That almost cost us the bandits we were chasing.”
The image was still as clear as the day it had happened. Why did the past always seem so much brighter than the present, these days?
“Almost, but not quite,” West replied. “I knew you’d push us fast enough, and we couldn’t afford to offend the nomads there. Besides, it was the right way to do things. One doesn’t dishonor a strange land’s priests, or their gods.”
“I swear, if the Ancient Ones were around today, they’d build a monument on that honor of yours and know it wouldn’t fall.”
“There was a time they could have said the same for you, old friend,” West countered.
King Claudius’s grip tightened on his goblet for a moment as he digested the insult hidden within that compliment. What made it sting more was the thought that it might be true. “That isn’t the way I remember it. I was the pragmatic one. You were the one who held us all back from doing the wrong thing.”
“Pragmatic?” This time, Lord West’s laugh was louder. “You were a dreamer. A hot-blooded knight errant who’d read all the stories of the great heroes and who wanted to reenact every one. We spent two weeks chasing around the cloud valleys with Baryn and his squire after some sheep herder’s daughter who went missing, got ourselves soaked to the bone because you’d heard too many stories about princesses stolen by the stone folk back in the old times.”
For a moment, Claudius didn’t remember, then it came to him, all in a rush. He could even feel the rain if he thought about it. “It turned out that she’d run off with some farmer’s son, didn’t it?”
“And someone insisted that we give them half
the contents of our money pouches for a dowry so that they could go back to face their parents,” Lord West reminded him.
He could remember the weight of them in his hand, passing them to a girl who had probably never seen so much money in her life, even though it had only been a pittance to them.
“I’d forgotten,” Claudius said. “How could I forget that? Whatever happened to old Baryn, anyway?”
“He died five summers back,” West replied. “His heart.”
There was a special kind of sorrow that came with hearing about death when you were older, Claudius had found. When you were younger, death was a distant tragedy. When you were older, death was close enough to almost call it a friend. The loss of those one knew brought sadness, but also a sense of one’s own movement toward the dark door. It gripped him then, along with the thought of what was coming with West.
“I didn’t know that,” Claudius said. He sighed again. “Perhaps that is what age is. A steadily realization that you have started to outlive the men who were your friends.”
“You’ll outlive me too, soon enough,” West pointed out, taking another drink.
Claudius frowned slightly.
He let the long, heavy silence fill the room. The silence of mortality. Of inevitability. Of fate.
“There are men who would beg for their lives at this point,” Claudius said. “I think that’s what some of those around me had in mind. The great Lord of the Northern Coast, reduced to begging for clemency.”
“The people around you are idiots,” Lord West declared, raising his glass as if he were proposing a toast to it.
“They are if they think you would ever dishonor yourself by begging like that,” Claudius agreed, although he didn’t raise his glass. Too many of the people around him were fools. “Which brings us to the big question, West. Why dishonor yourself like this? Why betray your king? You gave your word, and there was a time I would have trusted the world to that.”
“I gave my word,” Lord West agreed, “but my family also swore things. Bigger, deeper things than even my personal oath. We swore to protect the Northern Coast until the Ancient Ones returned. Serving the Empire was the way to do that, but that changed. My oath to my family’s service took precedence.”
