The Forgotten (The Lost Words: Volume 3) (8 page)

As a king, it belonged to him during his stay, so he could have asked for any setting. And he’d have exercised his right with any one of his archdukes. But he could not bring himself to do that with his sister. So he let her do whatever she pleased.

Sasha nodded as she heard him approach, without looking up. His bodyguards assumed stations opposite their female counterparts. Sergei stood in the center of the court room, admiring the prize of his campaign. He could see lines where walls had been knocked down, each section a slightly different shade of gray. The Athesian tapestries and armor suits had been thrown out. A pair of fireplaces had been built from fresh brick and mounted with shields. Sasha always complained it was too cold. Sergei hated the smell of smoke.

“Sister,” he said when he realized she would not greet him first.

Sasha looked up, rolling a quill between her fingers. “Brother.” Her priestess companion looked up, staring sharply, almost accusingly, at him.

“We need to talk,” he said.

The princess seemed to weigh his words, then flicked her wrist. The soldiers filed out, their armor clinking. The priestess lingered. Sergei felt his anger rise. He pointed toward the door. Sniffing, the woman rose and walked out. Some nameless servant closed them in from the outside.

“What is this about?” Sasha asked, sounding annoyed.

“The hangings,” he told her.

Sasha frowned. “What about them?” But then she rose and walked to the nearest fireplace.

Sergei took a deep breath. “You will not gain love and sympathy from the Athesian people if you keep murdering one of them every day.”

Sasha snorted. “When they surrender Amalia to me, I will order the hangings stopped.”

The king looked up at the rafters wrapped in banners.
Amalia
, he thought. No one knew what had happened to the empress in the attack, but her body had not been found inside
the Imperial Manse. Most people assumed her killed and forgotten somewhere, left to rot, but Sergei did not share their sentiment. He believed she had fled the city. But then, why hadn’t she revealed herself to her people? It bothered him.

She could not gain anything from silence. Every passing day, her influence waned a tiny bit more, the former loyalty of her subjects eroded another grain. All the while, her half brother gained more support, becoming the focus of the Athesian uprising.

With Amalia alive, her people would have a compelling reason to fight against the Parusites. The rebellion in the north would grow. She could marshal support against him. Only she had vanished completely.

Sasha thought she was hiding somewhere, biding her time, preparing a counterstrike. If not by force, then through subterfuge and treason. Sasha believed the Athesian loyalists controlled the city in spirit and were waiting for a signal to rise against the invaders. Sergei’s spies reported nothing of the sort, and he only ever saw worried, somewhat frightened, and cautiously optimistic people trying to secure a better future for their children.

He wanted to put Amalia behind him, forget about her. But his kingly duty did not allow him that. This chapter of his life story would not be over until he saw Adam’s blood eradicated. It just had to be done. The future of Athesia depended on it. There could be no two royal lines.

Amalia’s uncertain death gnawed at his conscience. Every day that passed without him glimpsing her grave made him feel incomplete and restless.

His sister had taken a more pragmatic approach to the problem. She was punishing people for abetting a traitor to the Crown. Every day, she ordered another citizen executed. So far,
she was killing the Athesian soldiers, those still held in the city jails. But eventually, she would run out of prisoners and have to turn on the baker, the glassblower, the woman who sold dried fruit at the corner of Yellowleaf Street. Sergei would not have cared if not for her blind icy-blue eyes. She might not be able to see, but those eyes followed him every time he rode by.

Sergei was worried by his sister’s harsh policy. He had promised the people of Roalas that they would not be harmed if they swore fealty to him. Indeed, most had, and in return, he had kept peace and restored refugees to their farms and homes. He made sure the city had law and order. Slowly, he was gaining Roalas’s trust, as much as he could with armed men at every corner and mandatory prayers at dusk and dawn. But it was a small price to pay for hot porridge for the children and a roof above their heads.

His three months of reign in occupied Athesia had been largely uneventful. Most of the towns had gone back to business, selling overpriced ale and potatoes to tired Eracian and Caytorean merchants. The fields rippled with fresh crops. The winter was not worse than any other.

He exacted a harsh but fair justice whenever it was needed, tried to avoid segregating the two nationalities, tried to make sure small, petty people did not abuse his rule to settle old scores. As far as invading another country went, Athesia was blessedly calm. You had your usual postwar share of thieves and army deserters coming back as confused villagers, brigands roaming the land, lost children wandering the dusty roads, an occasional Oth Danesh pirate caught and lynched by an angry mob, rebels and renegade soldiers posing as ordinary citizens, spies of all sorts, mercenaries seeking favor and payment for battles they may not have fought, and people with fickle loyalty bending knee to the new king.

It was nothing compared to how the Red Desert raids had looked in his youth. You couldn’t stop until you impaled every last severed head on a stake and burned the tribe camps to the ground. But these people were not mongrels. They were people of the faith, lost and confused, much like him. They looked the same; they spoke the same language. If he started butchering them, the neighboring realms might decide they preferred Adam’s offspring to him after all.

He would have to figure out what to do with Sasha’s punishments, but he still had time.

Sergei approached his sister. She was so tough, so cruel. And the only one suitable for the rule of this land. He had intended to bestow Athesia upon his son. Then, he had deliberated giving it to one of his dukes, but none had deserved it. Their performance in this war had been shameful at best. They had failed him, almost universally. And now, they were gone back to their homes, their one year of duty expired.

Athesia was now in the hands of the Red Caps and Borei. The women had no homes to return to, and the mercenaries always hoped for more gold.

Sergei had appointed Captain Speinbate as the princedom governor. It was a meaningless title, but one he had promised the man. One day, Speinbate’s many bastard children would be able to claim some relation to the Parusite nobility, by grace if not blood.

More importantly, Speinbate was in charge of keeping peace in the countryside. With his army much reduced by the departure of most of his retainers and their regiments, he could not afford to send regular troops into the rural areas and take care of every little detail. However, the Borei were perfect for that task. Nothing invoked debilitating fear among brigands as the sight of an olifaunt trampling down a dusty lane,
screeching. The mercenaries were also crafty buggers when it came to peddling and money, and they made sure no tax was evaded. Their wild, eccentric appearance caused the braver or more desperate citizens to quickly reconsider their little vices.

There was a price, though. Responsibility.

Captain Speinbate was responsible for the king’s peace. His own life depended on it.

Sergei was amazed by how disciplined the Borei could be when properly motivated.

Inside the city, he had disbanded the surviving City Guard and then rebuilt a new City Watch from those who would lay down their weapons and forswear their loyalty to Empress Amalia. Those who had refused now rotted in jails, awaiting execution.

Sergei had hoped to meet the famous Commander Gerald, but that was another hope dashed to pieces. The captain of Roalas had died defending the palace. Another satisfaction denied him.

Gerald’s deputies had surrendered and now patrolled the city streets alongside the Red Caps, demoted, humbled, but still very much alive, and constantly watched for any treachery. Most of the officers had done the same thing, and deep down, it worried him, but he would not break his word.

His initial plan to kill the entire army echelon had worn off after he had seen his son’s body wrapped in blood-soaked sheets. For some reason, he had lost the zeal, lost the hunger for humiliation. Most men found the deaths of their children to invoke murderous rage in their hearts. Sergei had merely felt humbled, saddened, empty.

Killing people for defending their homes would have been a sign of weakness. Not their fault. He understood that perfectly well now. Just as he could not lay blame for Vlad’s death
on anyone else. It would be his nightmare forever. The best he could do was stay true to his ideals.

He wished to have met Commander Gerald and heard the truth from him, the facet of the siege that he had not seen. He wondered what kind of hard decisions and compromises the man had taken to protect Roalas for so long, against overwhelming odds. But that was something he would never know.

His one consolation was the empress-mother.

He had Amalia’s mother in custody.

But he would be a liar if he said he felt good about it.

The woman was hard and cold, but he would not expect any less from a woman who had chosen to marry that butcher. Sasha had pressed for her death in a splendid public execution. Sergei had refused. He needed her. He needed her to remind him why he had come here. He needed Adam’s legacy to justify his own.

Sergei tried to reach a hand toward his sister’s shoulder, but she spoke suddenly, and he lowered it.

“You should go back to Sigurd. Your wife and children are waiting for you.”

The king smiled sadly. He missed his family. His lust for revenge blunted, he recalled all the other emotions he had put aside for so long. Yes, he should leave Athesia to his sister and retreat. She had a formidable force, arrayed to the west and north, cleaning the last pockets of resistance. Roalas was quiet, stable. She did not need him anymore, nor his royal decree. The princedom of Athesia belonged to Sasha.

So why did he stay here still? Why?

James, that was why, he told himself. Emperor James.

If he retreated just now, his son’s death would be meaningless. And it had to mean something.

“The executions must stop,” he said softly.

“When Amalia is delivered to me,” she stated.

Sergei sighed. Pointless. But he had decided not to interfere. Not yet. He would let her do as she intended. He trusted her judgment and intelligence. It was another trial.

Most men would see a crazy, cruel woman who lived a sinful life, against the godly ways, but he saw a girl, his age, bracing for their father’s beating with pressed lips and her cheeks dry, while his own face had flooded with tears.

He wanted to discuss the politics of the realm with her, talk to her about future relations with Eracia and Caytor. He still did not know what to think of Monarch Leopold’s mad decision to let the nomads into Somar. Eracia was in chaos now. He had Amalia’s hostages as his guests now, as they really did not have anywhere else to go, but he never failed to notice how very similar their position was to that of Emperor James. He may have started out as political bait, but he was now a threat to everyone.

Sergei wanted Sasha to give more priority to the rebuilding of monasteries and temples. He wanted her to prioritize industry and commerce. She also had to take the clergy into consideration and offer them a role in Athesia. So far, they had been left waiting, and their patience would run out sometime soon. He did not want to be on the wrong side of faith when that happened. The Safe Territories were also a concern. Most of the land was run by Parusites, but he wondered if they might not side with the patriarchs rather than him if they were forced to choose. And now, with Eracia in tatters, the stain of lawless despair was spilling into the Territories.

Sergei wished the princess would give more heed to the hurt pride of the High Council. He hoped she would elect to see the bigger picture of this conquest. Sergei’s role was that of Adam. He had driven a wedge between Eracia and Caytor, and
now it was up to him to choose what he would make of them. Hateful partners or bitter enemies.

He already knew what he must do. Become like Adam.

He wanted so many things. But his words faltered. “I’ll see you later, Sister,” he said and left.

His feet took him around the palace, almost without volition of his own. He found himself in the Garden of Joy. Lady Lisa was there, kneeling by a flower bed. Her female escort watched dumbly, bored.

The king waved his hand, and the two bodyguards stayed back. He crunched forward. She lifted her head. Her eyes narrowed down, and her steel mask came on.

“Your Highness,” she greeted formally, her tone icy.

Sergei snapped his fingers. The Red Cap soldier retreated into a small decorative tree, crushing tiny branches. “Lady Lisa, I hope you are well today.”

“As well as I can be,” she said. “I have told you many times before, you need not assign a guard to follow me everywhere. I have promised not to escape. You have my word.”

Sergei nodded. “I am not worried about your word, lady. But some people might choose to ignore it. Unfriendly factions might decide you are better off in their hands. Or even dead. It would not serve any purpose. Besides, the decision is my sister’s. She wants you protected.”

Lady Lisa clasped her hands in front of her; they were grimy with rich black loam. “I see. So you choose to hide behind your sister’s decisions? You are the king, but you let the princess take care of everything, and when it suits you, you take responsibility or deny it, Your Highness?”

Oh, it hurt. But he realized the woman was right. He was afraid of making another terrible, regrettable choice. He was not sure he could handle it. “It’s hardly that,” he heard himself say.

“My daughter made a similar error,” Lisa said without emotion. “She was the empress, but she let her commander make every decision. Then, she would dispute them or support them. Either you trust your close friends totally or you take charge yourself. My husband did not trust anyone. He won. My daughter did. She lost.”