CHAPTER 54 AN INVIGORATING INITIATIVE
Everyone was alarmed to hear the quickness with which the rebels were approaching. They had been under the assumption that they at least had a few days to organize …
However, it made the most sense on their opponents’ end to attack while the king and his army were unprepared.
Kat had her armor on and her sword attached to her side, though she moved far more slowly than she usually did thanks to her injury and weakened magic; she sincerely hoped she’d be able to absorb enough hatred from the council to recover more …
She had agreed to meet Alina in front of the council room doors and happened to be the first to arrive.
Serving staff, still working despite the pending conflict, rushed by her. As she waited, husbands of the servants and noblewomen passed with their arms around their wives and daughters, commanding them to the king’s cellars to wait until the fighting had concluded.
Children clutched onto hands or skirts belonging to their mothers, fathers, nannies, or grandparents. Some cried amidst the chaos erupting around them, some had fallen into silence out of fear.
Kat leaned her shoulder against the wall, taking long, slow, deep breaths and thinking she may have to sit down on the floor soon when at long last Alina appeared.
The busy corridor stopped its harried movement, and everyone parted for their queen in stunned silence.
Alina wore black pants, a black tunic, a brown leather vest, a small crossbow over her back and her braid coiled into a tight bun at the back of her neck. She didn’t wear a speck of jewelry, and while she still looked poorly, there was a determination and iciness in her expression that discouraged any comments from the vassals she passed. Instead, the nobility and servants bowed and curtsied as was expected.
Ladies Sarah, Rebecca, Kezia, and Annika followed behind the queen …
Each of them also wore trousers. Even Katarina’s own mother had a crossbow on her back and knives on her hips.
Kat gaped in astonishment.
She was so stunned that she almost forgot to bow when Alina finally reached her.
“Ready to do what you do best?” Alina asked with an arched eyebrow.
Kat couldn’t help but grin as she leaned around Alina to stare at Lady Rebecca. “How does it feel to wear pants, ma’am?”
Lady Rebecca stared back irritably, and that was when Kat belatedly noticed something else shocking …
The former Troivackian queen, the exemplary traditional Troivackian woman … wasn’t wearing her hair wrap, and as it turned out … she had short hair.
The same length as a man’s. Cut close to her scalp. It was dark and streaked with white …
But it only made her appear bolder, more daring … even younger in age …
“Actually, how did Lady Rebecca end up in pants … ?” Kat turned to Alina, who was staring at her friend flatly.
“We can discuss the pants later.”
“Where did you even get pants for everyone? I know my mother’s size fits you, but they all—”
“Kat. We are about to be in a battle. Focus. Now, what do you say? Let’s go aggravate some councilmen.” Alina gave a dry smile, and while it didn’t have its usual brightness, Kat could still see the flicker of the kind soul of her friend.
“Well … it is a hobby of mine to be annoying …”
Brendan stared at the army of men drawing closer to the walls of Vessa, the sky had only just started to lighten as daybreak approached. Dusty pinks and pale blues blushing over the horizon revealed the size of the army before him.
“We’ve beaten worse,” Faucher noted gruffly beside the king.
“I don’t see the magical beasts, and that concerns me,” Brendan returned levelly. “Though at least it appears they are only coming from the north. We can focus more of our efforts here. Unless the beasts show up elsewhere.”
Faucher nodded. “We’ll keep a good portion of the men at their original posts. They know to wait for the signal before joining us if we end up needing aid.”
Brendan grunted.
“Where did you choose to station Sir Cas and Sir Vohn?”
“At the castle. They are guarding Her Majesty and will follow His Highness’s orders.”
“Lady Katarina can help,” Faucher said more to himself than the king.
Brendan slid a sideways glance at his teacher. “She was stabbed and drained of magic. While she can still manage better than the average soldier, even her power has limits.”
A defeated yet fond smile filled Faucher’s face.
“Oh … I don’t know. She told me before we left that she had a gut feeling that things would be alright.”
“She was stabbed in the gut. That is concerning, not comforting,” Brendan retorted glibly.
Faucher’s grin dimmed, but he tilted his head thoughtfully over his shoulder as he recalled Kat’s intense determination and then thought about how his own daughter had turned into a confident, willful young woman, capable of shouting at the most terrifying knight in the entire kingdom because of that outrageous redheaded woman …
“I suppose she’s made me a bit mad as well, but I think she might be right. Things will be alright.”
Brendan didn’t dismiss Faucher’s out-of-character musings a second time. Rather, he stared at the military leader with softening eyes.
“Are you pleased to have gotten to teach her after all?”
Faucher cleared his throat, then scowled. “She’s still a pain in the arse, and I want a tax exemption on the amount of food we had to purchase in bulk because of her.”
Surprisingly, Brendan gave a brief, low chuckle.
“I suppose we shall see if we make it through a skirmish against the children of the Gods.”
Faucher suddenly stilled, color draining from his face …
He rounded on the king, the sharp wind on his cheeks stinging.
“Your Majesty, the gates to the city have been closed since the devil was brought to the castle.”
Brendan frowned … until he realized what Faucher was getting at. “The first witch could still be in the city … The tunnels!”
“MAGE SEBASTIAN!” Faucher roared over the heads of the archers that already had their arrows notched.
Mage Sebastian hurried over, his ponytail fluttering in the wind. “Yes, Leader Faucher?”
“Send a missive to Mr. Kraft. Now. The witches need to get out of the tunnels. They are in danger—the devil and the first witch might be nearby, and she may intend to gather her sacrifices while keeping us distracted. Make them scatter! No more than two witches can stick together at a time!”
The mage’s eyes widened, and without a word, he turned and sprinted back to the nearest tower where he might be able to magically send the missive.
“How did I not think of that?!” Brendan’s hand gripped the hilt of his sword, his eyes wide as he stared at Faucher.
“Everything is in chaos right now, Your Majesty. Sometimes we miss the obvious. But we can’t change the past. Remember, don’t get bogged down from an error; just keep fighting. You’ll be overwhelmed otherwise.”
Brendan swallowed with difficulty while slowly shaking his head.
“Gods, help us … I hope we get them out in time.”
“Tak, are you ready?” Aradia peered up at the stone golem, who didn’t verbally respond but nodded his great head slowly, the vines hanging around his head swinging as he did so.
“Viellen, you have Likon? Hafey, how is my brother?” Aradia called back to the two ancient beasts who stood a short way behind her with their charges unconscious. Viellen carried Likon gagged and bound, while the sirin merely floated the devil along, his head rolling limply on his shoulders.
Aradia popped open the brass device she kept in her pocket and smiled at it lovingly. She had called it Chronos, and it was her finest creation ever, even if it did burn through magic at an alarming rate when she needed to stop the flow of life …
A single mage crystal allowed her to stop time for two minutes, a hefty price given the rarity of mage crystals, but in her estimation, it was worth it. She could move about freely, as could anyone who touched her when she initially cast its magic.
Though even when she wasn’t using it to move between moments, it was a damn useful thing …
It quantified time. It measured it, broke it down, and it was never wrong. It took her centuries to develop, and when she had succeeded … ? Gods, it was incredible.
“We are prepared, mistress.” Viellen lowered his head and stepped protectively in front of Sam, who floated innocuously beside Hafey.
The first witch battled back a twinge of bitterness in her chest.
It never mattered what she had said or done since their first battle centuries ago … The ancient beasts always adored her brother.
She turned to face the rock wall before her and raised her hand.
Tak lifted back his great arm, swung it powerfully, and with a great crushing boom, he broke through the barrier that he himself had built a few decades ago.
“Mr. Levin,” Aradia hollered after the dust had settled. “How many witches did you say had been discovered?”
The king’s former assistant shuffled toward the first witch, his shoulders hunched fearfully when the sirin’s beady red eyes followed him.
“Two hundred sixty-three.”
“Excellent. We should at the very least be able to catch five.” Aradia proceeded deeper into the tunnel. Her hair was tied back in a high ponytail and swung back and forth as she climbed through the wide opening effortlessly.
Everything was going according to plan.
Katarina Ashowan would have no way of absorbing enough power to be a threat, and Finlay Ashowan was unconscious, which meant his familiar couldn’t share any of his information with anyone. The king would be trying to hold off the rebel army, and that meant Aradia could open her portal after sacrificing a few witches, return her brother, and then retreat to her own hideout to continue reshaping the country. If she managed to kill a few extra thousand men, she could bring over even more ancient beasts to help build her power as well. She knew she’d need them if she were going to make the changes she wanted to as efficiently as possible.
It would’ve been better if the king had simply offered up the witches and she could’ve attacked Vessa since she’d already received what she wanted, making it a surprise and giving her army an advantage. She wondered what would’ve stopped him from falling for her trap and so decided to bait the king’s former assistant.
“Was there any particular reason the king wouldn’t want to sacrifice five witches to avoid the war?”
“H-His Majesty knows that powerful people offering a cheap solution to a valuable problem is always more costly than it seems,” Mr. Levin defended his former employer, his hands clenching at his sides as sweat rolled down his back.
Despite the assistant knowing his wife Caroline was safe with their daughter back at the other end of the tunnels the first witch could tell he was struggling with his betrayal …
“I appreciate your admiration for your king, Mr. Levin. It’s a shame you two had to part ways,” Aradia noted lightly as she heard distant shouts down the tunnels where the few remaining Coven of Aguas members had lived for years. “I wish I could have taken the time to convince His Majesty and his council, but … well … my brother was always the one who was patient and persuasive.”
She continued striding through the tunnels, waiting for the bravest and ideally strongest witches of the coven to rush at them, making everything perfectly easy to continue with their plans.
But no one came.
Her eyebrows twitching toward a frown, Aradia, Mr. Levin, and the ancient beasts continued following the tunnels only to find …
They’d been abandoned.
“T-They may have decided to evacuate into Lady Elena Souros’s keep!” Mr. Levin suggested hastily when he noticed the first witch’s expression darkening.
Her eyes slid over her shoulder toward the assistant, making the man want to cower even more than he already was, but she didn’t say a word.
It was hard to believe the bumbling, awkward Lady Wynonna Vesey was the very same woman before him. She had acted the part of a drunken, well-meaning, airheaded noblewoman so perfectly …
They continued, the silence thick around them. Being so far underground, there wasn’t any sound they could hear that could indicate anything about the battle that waged north of Vessa, meaning by the time they reached the stairwell that would lead them up and into Lady Elena’s keep, the first witch was impatient.
“Tak?” Aradia looked back at the poor stone golem that was already nearly doubled over to fit in the narrow tunnel. “Do you think you can dig upward safely so that we can all pass through?”
The golem rumbled a response that wasn’t quite coherent, but the first witch understood nonetheless.
Aradia and the other ancient beasts with their captives ducked into the nearby doorways of the apartments, allowing Tak to squeeze through to peer up the stairs.
Tak let out two short clacking noises.
“It’s alright if you burst through part of the floor as long as we don’t get crushed,” Aradia responded reasonably, though she was getting more tense with every moment that passed.
That was one downside to her invention of Chronos … She was all too aware of how precious time was.
The sound of stone grinding and crumbling started echoing down to Aradia and the others as they waited.
Small rocks rained down on the stone golem as he worked, reshaping the stairwell, making it wider until …
He broke through the cellar wall and a bit of the floor above.
Tak opened his mouth to inform the first witch that he was finished, only the golem was distracted … by the fattest raccoon he had ever seen in his exceedingly long life. It was staring at him, its teeth bared as if smiling.
He had never seen such a creature … How was it still alive? Could it move? It was somewhat cute … Back when he lived in that realm, he had seen raccoons before, but none ever as large as that one …
Tak tilted his massive head, intrigued by the creature, but that was when the large raccoon opened its mouth and let out a savage shriek.
The next thing the golem knew, the ceiling collapsed over him, burying him back under the ground of what had to have been three floors of Lady Elena Souros’s keep.
Reggie the raccoon chirped and waddled away.
There was much to see to for his dear decay witch. Though of course there were two other familiars nearby that were going to help.
Kraken the empurror and Pi?a Colada.