Chapter 8
EIGHT
The rain had turned the lower courtyard into a pit of mud and puddles. Refugees lined up by the dozens, shivering beneath thin cloaks, their breath misting in the cold from the turn of the seasons. The smell of wet cloth and the constant low rumble of hungry bellies clung to the air.
At the front of the line, the Hastati distributed rations—half-filled ladles of thin, cold soup and stale bread.
One by one, as orderly as could be, the Lunarethians shuffled forward for their share.
Though the guards upturned their noses at their dirty clothes and accented vowels, the Lunarethians still murmured soft thanks.
Jesenia was last in the line, ensuring all the children and elderly had managed to get their rations first. By the time Jesenia reached the front, the guards had grown tired and irritable.
The ladle scraped against the large pot, nearly empty.
She waited patiently for them to scrape out whatever broth was left, and held out her bowl for her share.
She was soaked to the bone and her hair clung to her cheeks, her hands trembling from the cold.
The guard in charge of the bread—a broad man with a scar running through his brow—looked at her with open, obvious disdain. “Hmph,” he scoffed. “If it isn’t His Majesty’s savior.” He gave her a nasty look. “I think you’re due a feast.”
Jesenia, foolishly not knowing any better, softened her gaze on him as if she expected him to be kind. When he lifted the ladle to tip it into her bowl, he poured it just short of the dish, spilling the broth all over her bare feet.
Jesenia and the Lunarethians stared at the ground, but no one spoke.
“Clumsy me!” the guard said, his tone mocking sympathy. Then, he reached into the bread basket. He tore a large bite from it for himself, chewing slowly. He swallowed, then smiled. “Had to make sure it wasn’t poisoned, right?”
Then, he tossed the mangled hunk of bread into a puddle at her feet.
For a moment, Jesenia just looked at it, then, without a word, she knelt. Her hands shook as she lifted the bread from the ground, wiping away what dirt and water she could before tucking it under her arm. No tears. No anger. She would not give their cruelty the satisfaction of seeing her cry.
The guards laughed and turned away, packing away the ration cart and wheeling it away, boasting about their own hot meals waiting for them at the barracks as if nothing had happened.
But from the shadows, where no one could see, the Angelicus Prime watched.
He had come on the king’s orders, to continue his surveillance of Lady Jesenia of Lunareth, but as he watched her take a seat under the bulwark to shield her from the rain and eat her dirty bread with tears streaking down her cheeks, Rohannes felt his stomach twist.
He had fought wars, seen men gutted and burned, but somehow that small, deliberate cruelty from the men he commanded unsettled him more than anything he had seen before. Rohannes turned away from the scene with his jaw clenched. On his way back to the palace, he made a side stop at a bakery.
When Jesenia returned to her makeshift tent of linens crudely strung together that night, she found a full loaf of fresh bread atop a note:
Returned by order of decency.
It was unsigned.
When Rohannes returned to the throne room, there were only a few braziers still lit. Their flames were low and did little to warm the ache in his heart for what he had witnessed in the refugee quarter.
Val-Theris was pacing at the foot of the dais, his wings twitching—a sign that he was deep in thought. He did not look up as Rohannes approached.
“I sense your tension. What troubles you?” the king asked quietly.
Rohannes hesitated, rain still dripping from his cloak. “Forgive me sir, but I fear you would not believe me if I told you.”
That gave Val-Theris pause. “Tell me anyway,” he said, still pacing.
So Rohannes did; he spoke plainly of what he saw, trying his best to leave the emotions he was feeling out of it, for it was not his job to feel. He told his king about the cruelty of the guards and how Lady Jesenia hadn’t let them break her there, only to cry into her bread when they left.
When he finished his report, the silence between them was nearly suffocating. Val-Theris clasped his hands behind his back and stood straighter, his chin tilted upward with authority. “And no one stopped it?”
“No, sir.”
“Not even you?”
“No, sir.”
For a moment, it was quiet, but Val-Theris finally spoke, his piercing eyes burning with a quiet fury—at his men, at Rohannes, at himself.
“Tell them they are summoned. Now.”
It did not take long for Rohannes to find them. They were where they said they’d be: enjoying a warm meal and cold mead in the barracks. They were brought before the king, Rohannes behind them to face the same shame.
Val-Theris entered the throne room slowly, his boots reverberating against the polished marble, his wings spread wide as a silent intimidation. They seemed to fill the room with light, but it was not radiant or divine—it was cold and pale.
“My soldiers are the heart of Seraveth, the hand of the great city of Solmiris. When I cannot be everywhere, you are to serve as my eyes, my conscience, and above all, my honor.” Val-Theris came to a stop in front of the three.
His eyes paused on Rohannes, the disappointment evident in them.
“Tell me—when you spilled soup on a hungry woman’s feet, was it my hand you acted with?
When you laughed at her, was it my voice you echoed? ”
The older of the two guards swallowed hard. “Your Majesty, it was a lapse in judgement.”
Val-Theris’s expression didn’t soften. “That was no apology, but then again, it is not I that deserves it.” He turned to Rohannes, who stood behind them, frozen heavy with shame.
“These men acted beneath my banner, but it was your eyes that observed the act. Their punishment should be yours to decide. As for you, I expected better from the Angelicus Prime. My disappointment is immeasurable.”
Rohannes nodded, observing the arrogance of his men, the faint disbelief that they were being judged at all. Then, he took a deep breath.
“Your Majesty, I propose myself and these men be stripped of our sigils for one week’s time, and should spend that time in the refugee quarter as their equals to learn what we have broken.”
Val-Theris said nothing as Rohannes proposed his judgement, he simply nodded in agreement. “I trust you can make the arrangements yourself,” he said to the Angelicus Prime.
He bowed his head, and instructed the guards to follow him to the barracks where they would turn in their armor, weapons, and sigils of authority.
When the doors closed behind them, the silence was thick in the air. Val-Theris sunk into the steps, wings drooping, the tension in his shoulders revealing his exhaustion.
The next morning was gray and heavy with mist. The fires warming and lighting the Lunarethian quarter smoldered low, and the air smelled of ash, damp linen, and wet stone.
Rohannes and his men, dressed in simple trousers and pants, walked into the quarter quietly. Their clean, high-quality clothes stood out amongst the rags the refugees wore, for their clothing had worn through during their travels to Solmiris, and they had no funds to replace them.
Rohannes led them through the quarter until they found who they were looking for, huddled under a tarp, mending a hole in a quilt with another refugee.
Jesenia saw them approach from the corner of her eye, recognizing that they were not Lunarethian, but not immediately realizing it was Rohannes or the men who had acted cruelly the day before.
“Lady Jesenia,” he said respectfully.
She stood and came closer, finally recognizing them. She folded her shawl around her shoulders uncomfortably. “Yes?”
Rohannes gestured to his men, who scowled, but approached. One of them spoke. “We have come to apologize for our actions yesterday.”
“We have disgraced our city and our king,” the other added.
Rohannes then cleared his throat. “We have come to assist your people for the next week. We have been stripped of our titles and authority until this week’s end, so while we cannot provide more food or supplies, we can help your sick, watch the children, tend the fires.
Whatever you need from us, we shall see that it is done. ”
There was no triumph nor bitterness in Jesenia’s eyes. There was simply the calm composure of a woman who had long ago decided that hate was too toxic a poison to carry in her heart. She blinked up at Rohannes. “Are you here to watch over them?”
“No, my lady. I am here as part of my punishment as well.”
“Your punishment?” she asked.
“For watching them, and doing nothing to stop it.”
Jesenia paused for a moment—realization striking her as she understood he must have been the one to leave her the bread. “I see.”
She inclined her head for the men to follow.
She led them deeper into the camp. She did not berate them or remind them of their cruelty, she simply approached a thin, feverish child resting on his mother’s lap.
She took the child into her own lap and rocked him as the mother’s eyes shut for rest, knowing her son was safe.
Jesenia’s eyes turned to the guards and Rohannes, then pointed toward an elderly man coughing into a rag. “Work,” she instructed.
Rohannes was frozen for a moment, exhaling slowly. He watched Jesenia offer the men who had humiliated her a soft smile of encouragement as they tried to keep themselves busy. No scorn. Just…patience and goodwill.
“Pacifists,” he muttered to himself. “Val-Or help me, maybe they’ve been right all along…”
A younger Lunarethian child approached Rohannes then, holding out a small piece of torn parchment shyly. He hesitated, but crouched so their eyes met as he took the paper.
Thank you.
Rohannes looked up and caught Jesenia’s gaze. She didn’t smile, but nodded once at him in acknowledgement.