“What is happening. All of Paegeia has lost its mind,” mother yelled when she heard the news about Caleb.
“We should fight, Mom.”
She looked at me as if I had two heads. “Katherine Squires, you are a woman. It isn’t within a woman to go do a man’s job.”
“Mama, I’m not like other women. You will see, it’s only going to be a matter of time before King Louis is going to have to recruit anyone that can fight. When that time comes, I’m going.” I got up and ran out of the store before my mother could say anything back.
She was a lot like Maggy, seeing things for what they really weren’t. They always saw a silver lining in everything, but I never saw the silver linings. I was more like my father. I was a realist.
More sons fell -- those of governors, lords, sirs. Entire family tree lines were getting wiped out.
More hard times were coming.
The fields we had planted with vegetables and fruits were starting to bear their first crops.
Maggy and I were working the fields daily, as were my sisters and so many others.
It was a full day’s job.
Eikenborough never had so much food.
We knocked off late afternoon as the sun was setting. After all the carriages, carrying the fruit and vegetables, were heading to their destinations.
We helped out at night at the hall to prepare something for the orphan kids to eat and we ate with them.
It was strange that during times of war that people stuck together with no regard for wealth or social status.
We weren’t the only village that was surviving either.
Eikenborough was just one that took in refugees, Disselhorf was another, and there was one in Alkadeem too.
These were the most well-equipped and ready to repel dragon attacks.
Mother wasn’t at the hall and that worried me, but I had duties to attend to.
“Where is Mother?” Fallon asked.
“Probably on a mission.” I said. “Just do your chores, Fallon. I am sure that she will be okay.”
My sister nodded and we kept serving the children.
There were so many of them. But so many of them had been killed too.
The royals had no idea what the war was doing to us.
The dragons wouldn’t stop until all of us were dead.
A carriage took everyone that lived on our street home after we finished at the hall.
Maggy hadn’t been herself lately. She was so quiet. I felt sorry for my best friend and I missed her too.
I took Samual’s sleeping body from the carriage and carried him inside the house. He was getting heavier each day.
“Goodnight Maggy,” I said.
She just smiled once, and waved then entered her house as I entered mine.
“Where were you? We were worried.” I heard Cassandra and Fallon asking mother.
“Calm down girls, everything is going to be fine.”
I walked Sammy to the room and lay him down. Pappa wasn’t in his bed and I found him in the kitchen at the table with a parchment in his hand.
“What is that?” I asked without taking my gaze off the parchment father held.
“A summons,” he said. “Sit down all of you.”
We sat down. A summons to what.
“I am going to go away for a while. The king is asking for one male from every household.”
“To do what?” I yelled.
“Katie,” mother sounded stern.
“To fight in his war.” My father said.
“Father, you can’t go. You are sick.”
“I am the only man in this house. Your brother is too young.”
“Please, don’t go.”
“I have no choice Katherine. It’s war. The king needs me and that is final,” father roared.
My father wasn’t a fighter. Sure he was great with a bow and arrow, but that was about it. He hunted animals, not humans.
He got up. Still walking with his cane back to the room.
“Mother, he can’t even walk without a cane.” I whispered.
“Katherine enough.” She closed her eyes.
“He’s going to die. Am I the only one that can see that?”
“Then what do you suggest we do? We hardly have enough money for candles and heat. No Swallow Annex is going to heal him out of the goodness of its heart.”
“He can hide. We can tell them that he died during the winter.”
“That’s treason. Your father is many things but coward isn’t one of them.”
“Stubborn is. You both are.” I yelled and ran out of the house.
My father couldn’t fight in this war. The men that go do not come back alive.
Nicolas Squires cannot die like that.
I talked to Tony that night. The baker always had the greatest advice and solutions. He was so clever.
“I’ll tell you what, Katie, love,” he said, and dried my tears. He was so kind and loving. “I’ll go to the king and ask him if I can go in your father’s place.”
“You will?” I smiled, jumped up and hugged him tight. “Thank you Tony.”
“Just stop crying please, it’s breaking this old man’s heart.”
“But now you make me feel bad that you are offering to take my father’s place.”
“Not at all. It’s my pleasure.” He smiled. “And I’m not that old.” He winked.
I went home and didn’t tell a soul. Nicolas would kill me if he knew what Tony planned to do.
The bakery was closed the next day and everyone asked mom where Tony was. She had no idea.
Mother saw him as we were closing up the shop for the day and we went over to his bakery. I knew he wouldn’t tell me with them around, but he did say that he had urgent matters to sort out with the king. I’d slip out later tonight to find out what my father’s fate was.
“Eikenborough sure felt empty without you today Tony.”
He laughed and we said goodbye.
“Katherine,” my mother’s voice was stern.
“What Mama?” I asked.
“If Tony’s business with the king has anything to do with your father’s recruitment, I promise you, you won’t sit for an entire week.”
I looked back at the ground. “Yes, Mama.” I simply said. She didn’t say anything.
Later that night, I left for the bakery. The king wouldn’t hear any of it. He said that Tony was just too important and he was going to need his skills to rebuild Paegeia.
“I’m so sorry Katie.”
“You tried.” I sighed.
“There is another way.”
“Which is.”
“Appeal yourself. Go to the king and explain to him in detail about your father’s condition. They might send him a Swallow Annex, Kate.”
I nodded. I didn’t want my father to fight in this war. My mom and siblings needed him more. I had nobody to be responsible to. No kids, not a husband. I would appeal to the king.
I wrote a letter, just as Tony told me, that night by the candle fire and made sure that Patrick, who delivers letters, picked it up as he walked by our house that morning.
I gave him a paegolian and told him that it was an urgent matter for the king.
A few days later, a letter came back. The king declined my inquiry, he wasn’t even sending a Swallow Annex. None of it was making any sense. My father would have to fight.
They dropped off every man’s uniform earlier today and now we were sitting around the table in silence.
I wished that I could find the Swallow Annex Albert had told me about, the one that would’ve healed him. But I knew that wasn’t going to be possible, but I also knew my father wasn’t going to last for a long time if he went off to war.
Finally I could take it no longer, “Daddy,” I said, breaking the silence.
“Katherine, it’s my duty. I have no choice.”
“You are sick. You can’t go. You will die and it won’t be by some dragon’s fire or acid.”
He
smacked his hand hard on the table and I flinched with the rest of my siblings.
“I’m still your father. This matter is closed and if you do not know what your duties as a woman are, then you can leave this house.”
My mother didn’t say anything. She just bowed her head. I knew she felt the same way I did about this stupid military draft. She was just too scared to speak up.
My father had never spoken to me like that before and tears lingered in my eyes as I got up and ran out the door.
I couldn’t breathe.
I hated this war.
I started to cry and couldn’t even make it into Tony’s bakery.
I just collapsed in front of his door and cried my eyes out.
My father was going to die and there was absolutely nothing any of us could do about it.
He was ready to fight in this stupid useless war.
A pair of arms hugged me tightly.
It was Tony. I could smell the fresh baked goods on him.
“Katie.”
I couldn’t speak. I just cried my eyes out and then he led me into his bakery. Tony had a son that was going to fight in his place. He even suggested that he would take my father’s place, but the king didn’t want to hear anything about that. His name wasn’t Squires. He could volunteer for himself, but he couldn’t take another’s place.
It was so wrong.
He gave me something to calm my nerves.
I had tears that had been bottled up for months.
Tears for the prince, tears for my father, tears that I should’ve been a boy and not a girl.
He gave me time to calm down and then offered me a freshly baked roll and some milk. I downed the milk.
“Why is he so stubborn?” I said.
“Katie love, I wish there was a way I could take his place.”
“Why couldn’t I have been a boy?” Tears still streamed down my cheek.
Tony froze.
“If I were a boy, I could go in his place.”
“His place?” Tony sounded shocked.
“Seriously Tony, I’m different. You must know that. I should’ve been a boy. I would volunteer if I were a boy.”
“Katie, stop.”
“No, I’m not like the other women out there. I don’t cook, sew or even know how to run a household.”
“You are doing it perfectly from what I see.”
“I don’t like it. I love my bow and arrows. Love doing boy things and wearing their clothes. Why did God make me like this if I love boy stuff?”
“I take it they declined your request.”
I nodded. I had written a letter to the king, asking him to pardon my father because he was sick.
I told Tony everything.
About the fight.
About what my father said.
He touched my arm and listened.
Finally I was finished with my sad, sad tale.
He looked at me compassionately.
“As a boy I could fight, but as a girl,” I said the word as if it was venom on my tongue. “The king wouldn’t even let me take my father’s place.”
“Katie, you would die.”
“I’d gladly die for my father. My mother needs him more. He can’t die in this war.”
“It’s treason if you go and the king finds out that you are a woman, Kate. Not to mention the disgrace that you will bring to your family or your safety in the camps. War does crazy things to men’s minds. Your mother is right, it’s no place for women.”
“I know. But I don’t care. He cannot fight. I never felt so useless in my…” I couldn’t finish I just started crying again.
Tony wrapped his arms around me.
“Calm down.” He sighed. “Your mother is going to kill me if she finds out.”
I swallowed my tears. “Finds out what?”
“I wish I had a daughter like you. Brave and kind. Maybe that’s just what this war needs.”
“But you just said I can’t. If the king finds out that I’m a woman.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
Silence lingered. Even my tears stopped. Was this what a silver lining felt like? Hope.
“What are you saying.”
“I’m different too, Katie.”
My eyes grew.
“Magic.”
“Magic. How, only dragons can….” I looked at him. “Are you?” I whispered. I always suspected he was but never in all the years that I had known him had he shown any sign of being a dragon. Not one scale in sight, not one puff of fire’s breath.
He winked and got up.
“I don’t have much magic left. I don’t shift as much as I used too, but I have some to spare, if you let me and if, only if, this is what you truly want Kate. I will give it to you.”
I nodded so fast that it felt like my head was going to bounce right off. “I would do anything for my father. But what will happen to you?”
“Nothing, I’ll just be an ordinary baker, like I’ve always been. Wait here,” he smiled.
He left through a door in the back.
Can his magic turn me into a boy?
I got up off the chair and I started to pace around his shop. I didn’t want to hope, but if Tony could do that. I closed my eyes and for the first time in a long time a smile twigged in the corners of my lips.
Just thinking about the possibilities as a boy. Thinking about how my father could stay, not having to fight.
How my brother would be safe. I could take our family’s place and I would die for Prince Albert. Die for his legacy. Kill the son of a bitch that had incinerated him with his acid.
I was lost without him anyway. I would never find another. My heart was his, even in death.
You are really sounding stupid. I heard Maggy’s voice in my head.
No, I didn’t. She didn’t kiss him. She didn’t feel the connection that was between us that night.
I would fight for my people, for my family and for change. Hopefully peace would come after.
Tony finally returned with a piece of parchment in his hands. He needed me to get a few things from my mother’s shop.
He wrote them down on a piece of paper. “Katie be careful please if your mother finds you…”
“She won’t.” I took the parchment with the list of the ingredients and sneaked back to our shop. It took me a while to find all the herbs that were on Tony’s list.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that he was a dragon, but I was. I wondered what he looked like in his dragon form. I’d seen dragons before but from afar, not close up. And Tony was kind, so kind. Were all Metallics like him?
I had to hurry as time wasn’t our friend and when I had everything, I rushed back to Tony’s bakery.
I watched how he took the bowl and started to grind the herbs into fine powder.
His lips were moving fast, speaking so softly I couldn’t even hear a single word.
For the final ingredient, he took a knife and cut himself. He held it over the bowl and dripped blood onto the powder.
I gasped when it just disappeared. I blinked and looked again.
Tony chuckled.
“How?”
“Magic lies in our blood Katie.”
Magic had been banned for centuries. It was bad, but here Tony was using it for good, and there were no strange ingredients, just herbs and a spice or two mixed with his magic blood.
He took two handfuls of grain and put them into the bowl. He mixed everything and when he stopped there wasn’t any sign of the powder mixture left. Nothing but clean kernels of grain.
He took the kernels and put them in a velvet coin bag.
“One a day Katie, the spell will last for a day. You need to remember that. Just one a day. They will last you a long time. Be careful please.”
“Am I going to become a boy.”
He smiled and nodded.
I closed my eyes and got up. Hugged him tight. “Thank you Tony.” I said.
“You will still think like a girl, so I th
ink we have some time to tell you a few things about men. You need to play the part, Katie love.”
* * *
ALBERT
Two months passed.
The rebellion had really started.
More attacks destroyed more villages and with every attack news came from Bob or Goran.
I was glad Eikenborough’s name wasn’t mentioned.
Helmut joined me first, then after a few weeks Caleb.
The base camp was getting bigger. Connie and a few others were bringing children in on a regular basis.
We kept building more sleeping quarters in the trees, making the log house bigger. We even started planting crops for extra vegetables and fruit and had a team that ransacked the three kings carriages for funds.
The other side behind the wall was regularly sending ships with coins and artifacts.
We had a mutual agreement with France, England, and China.
Whenever war broke out, this side of the wall or the other side, funds were given for support. I even had men stationed at the borders.
The dragons with abilities were a great help there, especially Green-vapors with their persuasion ability.
Not a friendly thing either.
Goran duty was the most important of them all. His death wouldn’t have impacted King Magnus the way Helmut’s death did. And he was great at sneaking around and recruiting more men for our rebellion.
We were growing in number on a daily basis now.
More campsites were rising up far from the base camp.
More dragons and shifters became a part of our militia.
But at night, when I lay in my sleeping quarters looking up at the moon and stars, I ached for my lady.
Was she safe?
I hoped that the night of the ball had been magical for her like it was for me.
I knew she had seen who I was as I glimpsed of her running away.
What went through her mind when she recognized me? I wish I could’ve been able to read minds that night.
Did she still hate me?
That was why I was so adamant that Bob find her. I needed to know how she felt about me, was she thinking about me the way I was thinking about her. But he hadn’t been successful in tracking her down.
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