* * *
Katherine
* * *
I awake with my thoughts completely scrambled, the only thought in my head that of: RUN.
I get up quietly, careful not to wake Bronwyn. She's so nice to let me sleep in her bed. But I really should be going now. I shouldn't bring danger into her house. I should leave, now, and take the trouble away from her. She's done nothing to bring that upon her and into her house, and I can defend myself. Gevurah and Gedulah are sheathed at my sides. I can take anything on.
I am on foot, then, five minutes from Benny's house, pre-dawn light just beginning to blush pink along the horizon, when I hear the carriage. Before I can even turn around, he's upon me, the carriage already stopped ten feet ahead in my path. How can it be so fast, is my only thought before he takes me.
I only see the flash of his face, the nose, the black hair, and then the stab of a weapon into my side. I don't react. My arms are lead, hell, my Arms are lead. I'm on the ground, bleeding. I recognize those boots. Everything is blurry, but I recognize those boots. My body can't move, but my eyes slide upwards and I see Aaren's face over mine, grinning, his sneer arced under that prominent, fucking famed Xaillyndesse nose.
Then he wrenches the weapon in my gut, and I hear a woman's laughter, and I'm being torn apart. Gedulah is a muffled scream, Gevurah barely a whispered growl in my ear, before all is nothing.
* * *
Bronwyn
* * *
I snap awake. The dawn is red. No, it's everything around me that's red. Every sound I can hear is bordered with a whisper telling me to stay in bed, stay quiet, and stay as still as I can. I am the mouse in the thicket and the hawk is flying over me.
I don't know where Katherine is because I can't see her, but I have the sickening suspicion - the sickening certainty - that all is wrong with her world.
I don't get up. I don't move. I don't even send out a cry of help to the Poets and Armed that I know. I am absolutely certain that it would be suicide. Even more importantly, I am certain that such a death would be a blow against those who love me and the King that I serve.
Precia nuzzles me with a soft mewl. I concentrate on the warmth and softness of her tiny body and the gentle mercy of her purr.
* * *
Stevane
* * *
Everything's a blur in my eyes, everything's a blur in my head. The panting, the running, my brother's frenzied steps beside me. We started out fast, but as we've run towards where Katherine's supposed to be the urgency has been pressing into us, shoving us into a frenzied pace. Panic is a bad thing. I know this, but by this point it's as if we're being dragged forward. When the pull finally stops, I skid to a halt, Lyric stumbling beside me. I catch the flash of a carriage in the dirt road and the large dark silhouette of a man standing over a patch of scuffed up dirt. It's just in time for me to dodge to the side, pulling my brother with me, as the man strikes out for both of us with a long, bladed weapon. When we both roll in the dirt, something clubs me in the side of the head.
"Guests?" A woman's voice calls out from the side.
"Ants," the man replies. I try to pull myself up to my hands and knees, but a foot shoves me down into the dirt, firmly planted on my back. It stays there, the weight so heavy that I can't breathe. He's a big fucker! There's a protest from Lyric, and then the horrible muffled thunk of a blunt weapon hitting a skull. "Should I crush them?"
I can't get up. I can't make a sound. For some reason, I can't reach out for help with my mind. I try to grab Lyric, and then a blade comes down on each side of my wrist. "Quiet and still, those are the hallmarks of a survivor," whispers the man. The voice is familiar, but I can't place it. I do consider listening to it, much as I hate listening to anyone without question. I try to think if I saw Katherine anywhere near where we stopped in the road. I saw signs of a struggle, but no body and no blood. Maybe she got away.
I hear muffled footsteps in the dust. The woman's voice draws closer. "Ants are known for their hard work and discipline in their obedience to their Queen." She pauses for deliberation. "Keep them."
"Do we have room?" The man sounds bored.
"Are you leaving your son behind?"
"Of course."
"Then we can put them in the beds and still have plenty of room to ourselves. Make them kneel. I want to inspect them."
When I'm forced to my knees, the man is behind me. I see the woman, though. She bears a strong resemblance to Jhe h'Lete in facial features, but not in expression or demeanor. The man stays behind me, keeping his blade to my back. When I try to look down at my brother, who is still lying on the ground, the man jabs the very tip of the blade into me and I suck in my breath. "Eyes ahead, girl."
The woman raises an eyebrow. A chill runs up my spine. That woman. I recognize her, though not from in person. We're taught our history, our diplomacy, our politics. And, being so close to Jhe h'Logos, I should recognize his Mother. He himself has taught me to avoid her presence at all costs.
If that's the Queen Mother, then the man holding a weapon to my back is the Kommissar. That realization comes to me with a certain numbness. I must not show fear. That will kill me, right now. The Queen Mother is studying me like I am a particularly interesting specimen of bug. More importantly, she studies my brother. If he's worth more than a glance, it means he's probably still alive. Her eyes go back to me, and then pin me. The freezing sensation turns my guts sour. "She is a Poet. One of the Judge's rare non-Armed children. A Princess, by that lineage. The boy with her seems to be my son's consort."
The Kommissar snorts behind me. "I thought you sent out orders to have him killed."
"My assassin was incompetent, as she's dead now, and the consort is still alive. But that was an old hit, commissioned when Ebrellin-i was still reigning. Now that the consort is here, though... he'll have a use, I am sure. As for her, I can always use another Poet. Especially another Akribastes. She could also prove a useful hostage. Bind them both up. We ride to Lyiannethe as soon as it's done."
The Kommissar sighs with disappointment. "We're not staying to watch the reaction?"
Thelea is already standing in the open door of the carriage. "There's no Treaty anymore. The fireworks will be loud enough to be seen and heard from Lyiannethe. Bring them."
I'm oddly not thinking of how to escape now. Just when I'm starting to wonder about that, something thuds against my head again, the sound identical to whatever knocked Lyric unconscious. My body responds the same way to it that Lyric's did.
The next time I wake, it's in a semi-conscious, red-tinged haze. I'm in a tiny bunked bed, everything's dark around me, and I'm being jostled just a bit. I'm riding in the carriage, in the sleeper compartment. At least this thing rides smoother than most. The wards are thick, ironclad and stifling. There's something around my neck. I realize it must be the same collar that was around Gerald's neck in Lyric's story. The fact that I feel absolutely mentally muffled is the tip-off. I reach up to it automatically, fingers hooking under the band and tugging it forward a little, but I don't try to fight it and don't try to pull it off. I just don't like tight things around my neck, and this place is already small, and cramped, and it's moving...
My stomach lurches. I curl up and try not to focus on the movement. There's a reason I never learned how to properly ride a horse.
"Champagne is always suitable to keep handy, in case it comes to pass that we will have something to celebrate." I hear the sounds of pouring and serving. That was the Kommissar's voice. They're having champagne, then. Why?
I think of Katherine and my stomach goes numb, which is kind of a mercy. Thelea did say there was no more Treaty. Did they really kill Katherine? I didn't even see a body or any blood! And if they were stowing her in here I'd probably, well, smell something.
"Ahh, thank you, dear Xen. It is a lovely occasion to celebrate. I did so despise that grandchild. Good for nothing except impeding my ambitions. Ebrellin-i favored her far too much."
The Kommissar snorts. "A shame we won't be able to see his reaction. I do say, my lady, I rather liked your definition of a diplomatic visit."
Oh no. Not Katherine. Her life is the Treaty. The agreement between two nations to not go fucking bugnuts and destroy each other. As long as she lived, Crux Radia and Audiva Rocale couldn't attack each other. How could Thelea and the Kommissar kill her? How did they get the chance?
I listen to the two of them chit-chat over drinks and try to think of some way to get out of here.
* * *
Camden
* * *
I awake from a rather pleasant slumber to a sense of utmost urgency. It's as if some small person is beating his fists against a door in my head, urgently trying to rouse me. I pinpoint the cause of it.
It's not so much a new and pressing variable as the profound lack of one. In my mind, there are many connections. To people, to superiors, to important places such as my homeland of Rhivend. To objects, even, the most prominent ones being Arms. Foremost in those connections are Geillg'a, The Judge, The Advocate, The Poet King... there are more, of course.
The Advocate's absence is profound. I have trouble even moving, it's so upsetting. Jennelcia does not have that problem. I feel her move against me, and then feel the covers shift as she sits upright quite suddenly.
She knows.
"We have to do something," she says. I nod, then, finally getting up. We are quick and deliberate in the motions of dressing.
"Come on," I say. I can feel the urgency, now, and the sense of exactly what we must do. "We haven't much time left."
We leave together, Jenny just as eerily calm about the whole affair as I am.
* * *
Ebrellin-i
* * *
I am sorry. I am a bit of a mess right now. There's a mess all around me, and all in me, black and sticky and snarling me up. I don't quite understand it. I think that it is me, trapping myself, getting all tangled in my plumes, and then a voice in my head tells me rather insistently that it is not.
But I can't see right now, not at all, not at all, not at all. It's gone white, like gessoed canvas.
Do you know I painted him once? I painted Luciprochoros once... I do rather miss that painting. Enough of that... something very insistently tells me enough of that. My ropes tell me that's enough, that is who is speaking. The Judge's ropes? Or the ropes of something...
...I never think about that. Not proper. Too frightening. I have the most intimidating hunch that it might be not allowed for me to think about.
And then it comes upon me as a flash, clear as day. I am asleep, aren't I? There's a dawn over my mind. Golden light. Then it washes away, and there's a lingering sadness in me. As if I miss it, even though I just now only felt it.
Then, for no reason that I know at all, I claw at my chains, claw at my bedding, claw at the bed itself. I try to get it off of me. I try to get it away. I have to save her, have to save her, surely I've saved her up in a test tube somewhere? I did try that once, didn't I? But those experiments were forbidden. That was no reason to stop, of course. Once does not tell Science what is improper for it to do. But still I quit. I always left the experiments and the labs before they were finished, left them so alone. Was turned towards other pursuits.
But I kept something, didn't I? Succeeded at something? It feels so urgent. I feel a dreaded loss, even though I thought I began to welcome it long ago. Started severing parts of myself just to feed my captor, to keep it at bay.
Where am I, now?
Where is Katherine?
* * *
