Chapter 1
Chapter 1
The vibrant colors of Ylsse were muted. The woods surrounding the largest chapel house in the kingdom didn’t look as whimsical or full of curiosity as they once had. The branches seemed black and twisted and contorted with a decidedly villainous cruelty and ugliness. They almost looked like knobby witches fingers beckoning you inside the knotted thorned bushes. Crossing the bridge over the moat, mother nature seemed to laugh at the surviving brothers of the first camp. It did not echo their dreary sorrow with dark clouds and rain. That morning, she decided to shine down brightly upon them as though the occasion should be chipper, and everyone should act as free and weightless as birds.
Mother nature had a cruel sense of humor.
It was an official event. Instead of letting family and close friends grieve privately, the crown, or more fittingly, the council, thought it would be a better use of our time to send off ten souls in a respectable way, and show the public that the fight was won. We’d come home and the job was done: the Dustes were eradicated from this land, and they had nothing to fear.
I couldn’t blame the council. Lingering on devastation instead of celebration wouldn’t guarantee them power. In order to have a populous that could be controlled, they needed to have hope to cling on to. The villagers in attendance didn’t know or care about these men we were about to bury. They were here on obligation, because it would be a good look to show their respect to the lives that were lost.
Once the funeral was over, they’d join the party and drink spirits while dancing in the streets. That was what they wanted. An excuse to partake in a crown-sponsored invitation to work off some stress and laugh, uninhibited, again.
We entered the chapel and what we saw took our breaths away. The chapel staff opened the doors for us and the chapel sang to life. My time in chapels before that was minimal and I was only there when it was required for me to be but even with my limited experience, I knew this didn’t look like an ordinary chapel. Every inch of the walls were plastered in images of the camp together, alive and well. Their belongings were presented as artifacts of their life. It would be like walking through a museum to anyone who didn’t know better. For us, it was a brief spark in our otherwise dark and damp hearts.
Pictures of our brothers, Ollie, Prim, and Kyle. Kyle was in the back because he was the tallest. Pictures of our baby faces, back when Evan was still chubby and Nikita was just beginning to grow stubble.
This had been made for us. I couldn’t appreciate the good weather outside, but inside it felt like an entirely different place. I would have thought it was a party. This was meant to be a service, the celebration was afterwards. A celebration of successes was organized for the people, a celebration of the life of my brothers was right here.
This was amazing. This was us. This felt like taking back a piece of control that the council was trying to strip from us. They didn’t ever care about guards or soldiers. Their bottom line was money, military conquests, and the support of the kingdom’s people. If they had their way, there’d be no funeral. That was why they organized a celebration to make up for it. They wanted us to move on from our weakness and pull out more successes for them in their name. This act of vandalism wasn’t condoned by the council. This was truly and purely guard activism.
I hugged Hector and he wasn’t expecting it. This was so unlike Hector. He was the council’s best student. I never thought he could be capable of something like this.
We were all crying. It felt good to cry about something that wasn’t bottomless. Death was bottomless. The pain of my brothers’ absence would never go away. But I could cry happy tears. Happiness about the life they lived and the gifts they gave me. This had been Hector’s outlet. He found all of these pictures and put them on the walls. I could only imagine how many times he broke down in the midst of the memories flooding back to him.
I laughed with Hector. This was what it felt like to be rebellious for a purpose. The others took their time looking at the pictures on their own.
When people filtered in, they were shocked if not appalled. The chapel was meant to be a place of peace and calm. What Hector pulled off was loud and energetic. Just as the kids we were burying here today were in life.
I couldn’t help but hate the people of Ylsse as I stood on stage with my brothers. They didn’t deserve my hate, but they were placed in front of me for better or for worse. I really should have been staring at the Dustes men responsible for my brothers’ murder, or just not have come at all. It seemed I still had some unresolved bloodlust within me.
Ollie, who was always brutally honest and not afraid to speak his mind. Matt, who answered with his fists and not with his head. Greg. He didn’t seem to want to be a guard. He was the least likely of all of us to make it into the first camp. Ultimately, it was King Duncan who encouraged Greg to apply himself to something so that when it fit, he’d know. Being a guard fit Greg, all the way until the end.
Cecil. I could only laugh. I took him down when Master Penny threatened me with dishonorable discharge. He could only suffer through it. It had nothing to do with him. He was willing to be our board to launch off of to get to where we needed to go. What made him Cecil was that he was never a pushover, just flexible enough to snap back in place. I never thought that he’d snap in half one day, that we would eventually be too much for him.
I wiped my face harshly with a swipe of my hand but I couldn’t stop shivering.
The eleven of us gathered on the stage facing the friends and family of the fallen. The entire Dormir family were there, thirty something of them. Kyle's wife, Jesebel was seated next to them, looking troubled. My camp and I looked like what we were; we looked like kids who banded together in opposition to the world that chewed them up and spit them back out again.
The people stared back at us, wearing respectful black and grey clothes. Though we had gathered for the same purpose, our approaches were quite different. These were innocent village people and they were treating today just like any other service.
We were guards. We came to put our blood to rest like this was our last opportunity to do so, like we’d be sent off to war tomorrow and just as swiftly meet our own fate. Wearing formal attire and our swords at our sides, we didn’t look like observers but avengers.
It looked like our imposition was going to make the people run for cover, but the approach of wheels distracted them and they turned from facing the front to watch something come down the aisle. Unanimously and silently, we fought off the chapel staff to carry our brothers ourselves to the stage.
Foster and I sat down our coffin at the front of the chapel and looked around. We were so in sync, we unveiled the coffins at the same time. I looked at my brothers one by one but I couldn’t recognize them. They looked like wax figures of themselves. In caskets, they looked like they were made to never open their eyes. It was unnatural.
Ollie, Matt, Greg, Cecil, Stallion, Merry, Hannah, Thymes, Furnace, and Uzman were standing up in coffins for service-goers to see the former soldiers in whole, in uniforms granted after their death to honor their sacrifice to their kingdom. Seeing them displayed up there like that as though they were some dolls the council had fun playing with, then got bored and retired them back to their boxes made me sick.
Kyle held Prim as he cried over Ollie’s casket. My breathing was fast and short. I felt like something was strangling me. I looked in Greg’s coffin and held his hand. It was cold and rough. The last time I’d seen it, it was laced with Matt’s. They died together, holding hands. I remembered to breathe. A tear stained the red wood of Greg’s casket before I tore myself away from him.
My camp stood together in solidarity at the edge of the stage. We pulled ourselves together and stood with our backs straight. Our eyes were red and we were in need of tissues, but we were guards first and foremost. Duty came first.
We were the pinnacle of strength when the King walked in with the pastor. They swept down the aisles of people to stand in front of them behind the speaker’s podium. People got to their feet in the presence of royalty.
“For King and Country,” he said.
“For King and Country!” We unsheathed our swords in unison and pointed them out into the chapel before placing them on our boots. I wiped a tear from under my eye. The people took their seats and listened to the service. We stood before them, appearing as one camp together with the deceased at our backs.
“In every war, there is tragedy,” the King said to his people. “There is no strength without sacrifice and our first camp paid that price with their lives.”
I couldn’t hide my crying. It was torture to stand in front of people who would never understand our loss. I was expected to appear whole after my heart had been ripped out. My stifled sobs took over me. Cameron and Prim were close behind me. The three of us could hardly stand when the sadness overcame everything else. The rest could keep themselves standing during the service. I was suffering openly.
“Today we pay respects to the men and woman who were brave enough to do the unthinkable,” the pastor stood in the wake of the King. “Today marks a day we must not forget, a day of lifting those who were beaten down and a day of clasping the hand of the person next to you,” the pastor demonstrated for us and we followed suit. “This simple act is transformative. Through the collective of our bodies, we distribute the pain equally among us. This will be a day of unity and community in honor of our fallen soldiers.”
I held Foster’s hand and we bowed our heads and braced on the barbed wire that was our grief. We’d share it for a time and bleed together until some of the pain turned into numbness. When another person spoke, I opened my eyes.
“Greetings, all.”
We looked to our left to identify the person at the podium. The same council member who assigned me my second class. The vulture who feeds off of bodies slain by greater forces than himself.
“It pains me to be here with you today,” he said, pretending to be empathetic in front of the people watching him. Foster squeezed my hand, compelling me to ignore the man and calm down, though my impulse was to do the opposite. “What heroism, right?” The man clapped in applause for us. It went on for so long that people in the crowd joined him, convinced he was waiting for their participation to get on with whatever they knew he was going to perform a whole speech about. It was an assault on my ears.
The man adjusted the podium, getting greasier by the moment. “We are here today because of the mission that these men completed. Not many know this,” I was squeezing Foster’s hand tightly; just as hard as I would the hilt of my sword if he’d allow me to hold it. “But the mission was a complete success!”
That’s not true! I struggled out of Foster’s grip but he held me back when my reaction was so strong, the audience had to have seen it. I flared up. This man was inflating the truth to make the council look better after all of these unforeseen casualties.
“The lives lost were an incident apart from the objective of stealing back our land. The mission was an in and out circumstance. The enemy did not know we were under their nose. And now, we’ve just confirmed that they pose no threat to us.”
The audience clapped for the council member.
I was the only one who knew King Duncan himself orchestrated this mission. It rocked me to recall this council member in particular voted against the mission with the nobles. He had nothing to do with the outcome of this military tactic.
All of a sudden, Foster brought me in for a hug. I hadn’t noticed that I had started to glow. He blocked the color growing in my chest with his own. The people couldn’t see me like this. Surbize gave me a look. He was the only one who knew who I really was. I supposed, now Foster did too. They were aware that the way my abilities manifested were dangerous for me in public spaces. I didn’t want to get persecuted or nailed in the village square on suspicion of being a witch or demon because I couldn’t control my emotions in this vulnerable state.
“Your army is strong,” the council member said, not noticing my struggle. “Only good things came out of this mission, don’t you fret. Their deaths made us stronger. King Duncan’s army is driving the vermin from our land. They don’t stand a match for our forces. The future of this kingdom only gets brighter from here.”
I was turning bright red and shaking from my hatred of this man. My brothers died for you! This was no accident!
Don’t pay any mind to the bodies before you, I mocked the man in my head. They were just props to him. My flesh and blood, nothing more than just freshly plucked flowers for the bouquet that was ignorance.
The people didn’t know any better. They couldn’t tell that his story was fibbed, what reason would he have to lie?
Foster held me tight as I lost control over myself. I was crying and balling up like a seed about to explode.
“I think what you mean to say is,” I caught my breath when I heard Nikita speak. He broke ranks with our line on the edge of the stage to face the council member. “Because of the bravery of soldiers, such as my brothers,” he gestured to their coffins, then looked back at the shriveled man with pointed eyes. “The enemy doesn’t stand a chance any longer. Because of an ‘unrelated incident,’” Nikita walked towards the podium, puffs of flames burst from his clenched fists. “My guards were killed protecting our people from invasion. There will be more like them,” Nikita was shouting now. “The bloodshed doesn’t end here. You’d like to have us believe everyone returns from war. Because we didn’t hide their bodies when we walked through these streets, you weren’t allowed to weave that fairytale, isn’t that right?”
The councilman was knocked back by Nikita’s sharp feedback. He stumbled from the podium. In front of the public, that was as good as an admission of guilt.
My band of brothers stood by Nikita’s side, glaring at the councilman for having the gall to take away the importance of their deaths. The council member got to his feet and walked out of the chapel, avoiding the curious eyes of the people.
I balled a fist and heard the satisfying plop of the old man face-planting. I took the feeling out of one of his legs. It wasn’t the punishment he deserved, but I couldn’t do anything too appropriate without drawing attention.
“The time has come,” the King got to his feet. “Pay your respects. Family of the deceased before the public, if you will.”
It felt like holding my breath, but when I was finally out in the open air, the feeling of being crushed by a million eyes dissipated. I walked off alone, still fuming, so hot I thought visible steam was coming off of me. The pavement cracked under my feet from the pressure coming off of me. I left a pretty obvious trail of destruction in my wake. I was red and everything around me was red. My rage blinded me. I didn’t care if anyone saw me like this. I was a tornado of pent-up energy.
That council member was unbelievable. To come to a funeral and steer us all away from our much needed retrospection to make it about himself and the prosperity of the council? He didn’t know the half of it. He didn’t know half of the truth or the reality of what we went through just to get back here and told none of it happened. To be in his shoes, sending out a camp of council members on a mission and wait, secure and safe in a leather bound chair until they come back to see their reaction when I tell the public their sacrifice was for the greater good. That it all serves a higher purpose. That the death means nothing. They were just players, pawns in our little chess match and guess what? This round was a victory!
It was all an illusion. All we know after this ambush was that the country of Dustes needs gasoline. They were industrialists, of course they run on gasoline. Gas beats water, and it’s fatal. All of that work, just to come back broken and damaged and we’re no closer to a surrender. They’d shouted: “Invincibility or death!” Then they destroyed the neilatree. Then, we killed all of them. Their leader said they were unwilling to back down from a fight. This war would happen. More casualties would pile up on the side of the chess board. The council members didn’t care who had to die. They’d expend anybody who’d serve a purpose and who could clear the path to a check mate.
I screamed into the air and the sound traveled. I had been festering, growing more and more acidic like a toxin. When I released it, the trees behind the chapel bent backwards. When I opened my eyes to assess the damage, it looked like a giant had flicked them over like dominos.
My fellow guards found me not long after, following the sound. We watched as families of the deceased laid their children six feet into the ground. The others departed in their own time. Nikita and I were left standing. Just as we turned to leave, some teenagers looking to get into trouble came out of hiding and hovered over the graves of our brothers.
“You didn’t tell me we were raising hell,” he said before he raised his arms and fire spread rapidly around us. The misbehaving teenagers screamed and ran as fast as they could. The ropes and wood keeping the caskets opened burned, and finally our defenseless brothers were protected and comfortable in their beds where they would lay forever undisturbed.
I scoffed and laughed with Nikita. It felt good to know I had someone just as demonic in this land and time as myself. Beneath our feet, the ground began to rumble. I closed my eyes and breathed out. The graves began to cover themselves with fresh dirt until they were full and buried. They would never be seen again.
“Fire!” Someone inside of the chapel screamed. We chuckled. The people ran out of the chapel, thinking they were in danger. With a snap of his fingers, Nikita put out his fire like it was never there to begin with. The people stopped running, confused. What they had seen and felt just moments ago, now there was no evidence of it ever being there. Were they hallucinating? Were they seeing things that weren’t there?
We had our fun. Taunting people who didn’t deserve it. Good times would be hard to come by, so we had to take advantage when it presented itself to us. Nikita walked away first, taking himself back to the castle as the party in Ylsee raged on around us. I lingered behind.
The Prince should have been there. He was supposed to shadow his father in all of his Kingly duties. I wasn’t surprised he wasn’t. He made a good attempt that morning, but he was unfortunately dissuaded.
The Prince ran out of the council just as the procession of guards headed into Ylsse. We stopped our progress and stared at the Prince. Obviously he had conflicting thoughts about this. If he was positive he was coming, he would have been here early enough not to run and almost miss the opportunity. He definitely made this decision last-minute.
The appropriate words were lost to me when I turned around and found him there. I tried and stopped multiple times, feeling flustered in front of Nikita and Evan’s confused faces. I was grateful when Kyle stepped in-between us and their judgemental stares.
“This invitation is not extended to roosters,” was what he said instead. The happy and relieved feeling was gone. Kyle went from placid to enraged in a matter of seconds and I was nowhere near close enough to stop Kyle from punching the Prince in the face. “My brother is dead because of you and your father and you dare show your face here? Today?” Kyle yelled at the Prince who was recovering from just being punched in the face. I was stuck in place.
I needed to help him, heal him, comfort him. But I also needed to stand in solidarity with my brothers. Before I could do anything, a royal carriage pulled up and Cameron jumped out of it, unaware as to what had just transpired.
“And you’ve got a VIP escort to the memorial you’ve sponsored,” Kyle stood in front of the Prince who held his nose as he got to his feet. Kyle turned around and stared at me. I began to get suspicious he could tell the Prince was here, for me, then he turned back around to continue yelling at the Prince. “You’ll be down and back in time for the party! Isn’t that right, Prince? Can’t be real with the public for more than a day, so you lighten the mood with festivities? Is death too dreary for you? Can’t honor your fallen without the fireworks and bands to make the people forget their momentary suffering?”
“That’s enough,” Nikita put a hand on Kyle’s shoulder and he shoved it off. “You threaten a member of the royal family,” Nikita reminded Kyle through gritted teeth. No matter how much Kyle needed to get this off his chest, there was no excuse for punching the Prince. No matter how much he’s feeling and is allowed to feel, should he be excused for an act of violence against the most important family in the kingdom. Maybe his grief made him forget he could be sentenced to death for something like that. Maybe he didn’t care.
Prim stood to the side. Either too devastated to intervene and save his remaining brother from acting out, or too tired to join in the fight.
“My brother,” he shoved a thumb at his chest, “my pain. Your distractions will never take him away.”
I looked to my feet, disappointed in Kyle, but unable to do anything about it.
“You can blame me all you want,” Tobias said, “but there’s nothing I can do to make up for what has happened to you. The f festivities are a celebration of your successes. They in no way are meant to cover up what happened. It’s only natural that the public move on faster than the people more closely affected by this tragedy. In all honesty, it is a publicity stunt, to make the people believe we are succeeding and that they are in good hands. I apologise for my father’s and my involvement in it. I would never take part in something that squanders those valiant soldier’s memory and honorable sacrifice.”
The Prince’s eyes lingered on me. “I can’t hide within the luxuries of my birthright anymore. I will not. I wasn’t there and I can’t claim to know your pain. I was merely attempting to pay my respects to the fallen soldiers.”
“You should have thought about that before you sent us to a massacre. There wouldn’t be a funeral to go to if we knew enough to know what to expect when we were going in. We were outnumbered a hundred to one. None of us would have died if we weren’t rushed to complete this mission before it was investigated properly. Negligence is to blame. Your family let us down. If I see you in the chapel today, feel free to come to my funeral after I give it my best shot before I’m struck down.”
Kyle turned around and the camp cleared a path for him away from the Prince. He shoved Prim and they walked together ahead of us towards the chapel. The others turned from the Prince to follow the brothers into Ylsse. Hector and I stayed behind.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
“You don’t need to worry about me.” The Queen’s funeral played out a lot like this. Her body was carried from the castle to a black carriage. King Duncan and Prince Tobias walked on either side of it to the chapel; he faced the crowd of people lined up to pay their respects when he was just thirteen. It was unbelievably horrible of me to think this day was solely about me and my grief. We’d both suffered with death. One didn’t hold more weight than the other. “My mother is at rest. Now, it’s time for them.”
All in all, it wasn’t a great first impression. He put in his best effort but it wasn’t enough, or wasn’t the right timing for us to receive it. He didn’t attend. I didn’t think it was due to Kyle’s threat, but more of a respect for the fact that if he was in attendance, everyone would be focused on him instead of the soldiers who the event was centered around.
I didn’t know how I felt. A part of me wanted him there so that he could comfort me, but I also wanted to avoid public declarations of closeness. If the people saw us together in that way, hugging and crying, rumors would undoubtedly spread. I didn’t need that kind of scrutiny.
With the event over and the mood of the city shifting into nighttime energy and jubilation, I walked alone back to the castle. Tay and I still needed medical attention. I was granted temporary hospital leave for the wake, but if I’d learned anything from the first time, I owed it to more people than myself to do my best to physically recover even though it was boring and I hated it.
The things I needed to fix could wait until tomorrow.
