Book 4, Chapter 35: The First Loss
The last time I watched my officers and soldiers celebrating, cheerful at surviving our desperate race to Bechalle’s castle, drinking and merrymaking, I, too, was happy, relieved and comforted by their presence. This time, I watched men clap each other on the back, tell stories, none here embracing in sadness thinking of fallen friends. Perhaps because we hadn’t lost many and these soldiers were mainly officers.
I turned my gaze to Morry and Rand as they prepared a meal from a large chunk of meat. The wyvern, probably. Morry, moving the wood around in the fire, Rand pushing a metal spit through the meat then dumping salt generously over it.
Gun, his perfect posture, a group of soldiers around him, he waved his arms, telling and retelling how he led the men, slew the beast. I wondered if they noticed, but the group paused and drank as one, laughed at the same time, were quiet together during the storytelling.
I looked into my tea and wondered. Disappointment. I wanted Gun to be better, but he wasn’t. Moral. But no leader of soldiers could be moral here, in this world. He was kind to me, offering good advice, to be sure. But. But, I was here in this world. What could I expect? It was a tough world, and these were tough men.
“Here you are, Cayce, ever sitting alone as your penchant. Mine, I guess, is to always be finding you.”
“Maitlan! You startled me. I . . . I thought you’d be celebrating with your fellows.”
He waved his cup around, sitting beside me, “I’m not in such a mood.” He stared off at the fire for a few moments, off into the woods beyond it, then slowly settled his eyes on me, forced a smile, “Though I am glad to sit with you.”
“Not in the mood. Did you lose men today?” With so few soldiers, he was probably close to many of them.
Tears welled up in his eyes and he bit his lower lip, voice so faint it was a whisper, “My brother.”
“Oh, Maitlan!” I threw my arms around his neck. “Oh my god, I am so sorry.”
He cried then, chest shaking. I slipped my arms around his waist, pulled his head toward my chest, and let him get it out.
Looking around, no one paying us any attention, so into their comradery and insobriety they were. For some reason, as Maitlan’s tears fell, my annoyance for Gun grew. He should have done more for the injured, paid more respect to the fallen. Damnit!
But all these soldiers who’d died, all were worth these tears. I just, I didn’t know them, was getting too used to being the princess, aloof and above, making decisions that affected everyone, paying less and less attention to anyone. Hence, I hadn’t realized, wasn’t listening, when Maitlan read off his brother’s name.
“I am a fool, Maitlan, and so sorry.”
His sobs lessened, stopped, and he pulled back, wiping his eyes, “Princess, I apologize. I . . . didn’t mean to-”
“You have nothing to apologize for! I should be apologizing to you. I didn’t, oh my god, I’m so sorry Maitlan, I didn’t recognize his name. When you listed their names. How awful of me!”
“Charce was younger than me by two years.” He shook his head, “Brash. Never listened when I told him to be careful. He rushed in with the grapples, the first to do so. Before,” his eyes narrowed, “before even Gun ordered the men to use them.”
I took his hand in mine. “The first day, when I met you both, he, well, he rivaled you as a suitor.”
“No – did he?”
“You remember, at the table. He tried his best to flirt. A daring young man, truly.”
“Yes, yes, daring and bold and brave. Charce didn’t want to leave our lands. He wanted to form a brigand group and harass the Ketzles, but I wouldn’t let him. We fought then, exchanged harsh words, but I didn’t . . . didn’t want him to, it was too dangerous, staying.” More tears fell from his eyes, but he did not again burst into sobbing.
I didn’t know what to do but hug him. Run my hand down his back, trying my best to be comforting. Never imagined someone I knew would die like this, but this world was unforgiving, and I was only insulated from it by being royalty. A terrible truth, a terrible world.
How do you take the pain away from another? You can’t. Assuage it? If you’re close. We weren’t really, or at least I didn’t think so. In his imagination, maybe. But I had spent time with him, held his hand, even danced with the young man. He was doing his best in a bad situation. And it seemed like, it really seemed like, he was maturing, becoming a better person.
How strange to be fifteen again, and live through these emotional teenage experiences again.
“Maitlan, you want some tea?”
“I don’t know,” he stared at his cup, filled with whiskey. “A part of me just wants to get drunk.”
“We have a saying where I come from,” he gave me a strange stare. “Ok, not a saying. A book. I don’t even believe in it, nonsense really, but a book. And it says, ‘drink is for commoners, not for kings.’ Maitlan,” I squeezed his hand, “drink until you can’t remember, if you want, but you’ll remember tomorrow regardless and you’ll just be hungover. And you have men to lead.”
He put his hand behind my head, fingers weaving into my hair, pulled me toward him and I couldn’t resist, and placed his lips on mine, desperate, longing, and I returned his kiss, deeply and strong, and then we parted. Wetness from his eyes on my cheek.
“Cayce, I love you.”
“Fucking hell.” I stood up. My finger dropped and pointed at him, into his face, waving it back and forth, “No! No you don’t and no I don’t!” I shook my head, patted down my gambeson, resisted wiping my lips, and that took real effort, “You’re drunk, you’ve had a shitty day and, hell, I’m the only girl in town. I’m sorry! I’m sorry. I’m . . . I’ve got to go, I’m going for a walk.”
He might have said something, I don’t know. I headed off into the darkness and away from the men and wondered, over and over, wondering just what the hell. Why oh why did I kiss him back? His brother died!
Alcohol, it had to be. He was drunk. I drank too much, had too little tea. Jesus Christ. I needed more tea! Give me dried and crushed caffeinated leaves or give me death!
Definitely don’t give me more . . . boy attention. No more of that, thank you very much.
I walked and walked and the hill started to slope down and I realized how stupid and dangerous it was for me to be getting so far from the fire, from people, in a land full of magic and monsters and danger and assassins and suitors and dowagers and earls and dukes and lead-sugar and torturers and everything and everything trying to change me and me, I no longer knew who I was and I had so much power that I could level entire cities and nothing and no one could stop me and if I used it, oh if I used it, there would be hell to pay and they’d hunt me, they would hunt me soon regardless, and Gun, handsome and thoughtlessly masculine, and Maitlan, deviously growing into a fine man, and Morry, oh Morry, my protector, ever by my side, ever with me, totally impotent against the dangers I faced, and none of them, not a single one of these men and boys, could understand me, or help, and I wished, I yearned for, I begged and pleaded with the universe and all gods that were holy, even the unholy ones if they’d but answer, that anyone, anyone could, and I could barely admit this to myself, but I wished and wished it were the big man, that he understood and rescued and protected me and yeah, I knew, I knew I could destroy this world if I wanted and I was so very, very close to wanting that.
I sat down on a lonely slope in the middle of nowhere, not a light to be seen and stars in the sky. My turn to cry.
For what I lost. But what did I lose? I didn’t know!
I couldn’t know!
Bechalle, you asshole. You took your secrets to the grave. I hate you for that more than for the torture.
I stretched out my hands and fired a laser five feet wide and ten feet high across the landscape, over the trees and grass, far off into the night. The plains beneath me lit up as it passed, small groups of deer here and there froze, the silence profound, even after it was good and gone, several moments before insects and frogs and whatever other horrors in these forests, these lands, began making their noise, their pleas for sex, their territorial screams, as my laser left, off into space, a straight line, not following the curvature of the planet.
Off at the speed of light, to travel forever, perhaps to meet aliens and baffle them. My gift to their scientists, my Wow! signal.
So powerful I was.
No one came.
Eventually, the sounds of merriment drew me out of my thoughts and I returned to them, my people now, my army. My home.
Comments (0)
Please login or sign up to post a comment.