Chapter Twenty Fenlia #2
‘Then it is a matter of triage. Healing those that are worst off, stabilizing those we can and instituting quarantine zones that arrange the cities in levels of need.’
Fen shakes her head. Tries one final time: ‘The cities will still be overrun. If you just close the gates like Elician said—’
‘I’m not willing to risk it,’ Adalei rebukes.
‘You can’t just ignore what he said – he’s the King!’
‘And when he is not here, it falls on me to use my judgement on how to rule this country. It seems,’ she drawls, ‘he is not here. He is in Alelune. And before he left, he dictated I would take command. And so I am. Cieli, are you sure the Alelunen Reapers will help?’ Adalei presses.
‘We don’t have Alest here to confirm the order.
They’d need to trust it came from him, that it would help him. ’
‘I’m sure,’ Cieli confirms.
‘We wouldn’t be able to protect them if they split up across the country,’ Adalei says. ‘They’d be in danger.’
‘They could also run away and be completely belligerent,’ Fen reminds them, then, raising her voice, she insists: ‘You both know this isn’t what Cat wants.
He wants them safe, out of harm’s way. Not forced into service.
He didn’t ask them himself for a reason.
’ He said those words almost exactly. He held those Reapers to him, listened to the shocked awe and desperation that clung to each member of their community after they were forced to fight and kill for Gillage, and he promised them safety.
Kindness. Freedom to choose. ‘It does not matter if they have the ability to help others. If we force them to use it then we’re no better than his brother. ’
‘I wouldn’t force them,’ Adalei says. ‘But asking is not forcing.’
‘It is forcing when they think they need to pay Cat back.’ She points a finger at Cieli, accusing and hateful. ‘You said it yourself. They’d do it just because he is their stello.’
Cieli shrugs. ‘If they say yes, then that’s on them. They made that choice. And it’s not your place to take that choice away.’
‘Is that what King Aliamon told you when he sent you to spy for him?’ she asks. Cieli doesn’t even flinch. She looks at Fen blandly.
‘Yes. And I don’t regret it. Neither will they if they choose.
’ Fen opens her mouth to argue again, but Cieli talks over her.
‘You’re a Giver. You’re from Soleb. You do not understand what it means to be a Reaper.
Less than that, you don’t know what it means to be a Reaper of Alelune.
We will always be loathed and feared. We always were.
But those people we helped on the road thanked me for the first time in my life on our way here because I made a difference.
Because sometimes an end needs to happen for a life to begin.
All us Reapers deserve the chance to be thanked.
And those ones? Those who have so recently done great harm?
They deserve a chance to be a part of this.
Stello Alest will understand.’ Her eyes flick towards Adalei. ‘And your King Elician will too.’
Fen grinds her teeth. She looks down at the map and all the black marks that showcase cities throughout the country. ‘Those Reapers also helped murder nearly forty thousand people.’
‘So, let them save forty thousand more.’
‘It isn’t what Elician commanded before we left,’ she repeats. ‘It’s not what Cat told me time and again.’
‘They’re not here,’ Adalei says. Gentle, kind, but resolute.
She looks down her perfect nose at Fen and speaks with a steely disposition that unsettles Fen’s stomach.
Elician did leave her in charge, but she cannot help feeling that he didn’t intend for Adalei to take that as permission to do whatever she pleases.
‘You must trust me to lead,’ Adalei entreats.
Only Fen is not so sure she can. She forces a smile, but it does not meet her eyes.
From the way Adalei’s lips twitch downwards at the sight, Fen is certain Adalei knows it too.
Even so, Adalei turns her attention to the map.
Cieli joins her at the desk, and they start drawing and organizing plans.
Fen can do nothing but watch, her gut churning more and more as she hopes she is making the right decision even if everything about it feels wrong.
It is almost a relief when, only a few hours later, the lords and ladies of court are equally as furious with Adalei’s proposal.
Adalei sits with her back ramrod straight.
Her hands grip the throne’s armrests so tight that Fen can see her knuckles turning white even from several paces away.
But Adalei’s face reveals nothing save passive tranquillity as insults and shouts of horror are thrown at her from all directions.
Cieli was lucky enough to have been excused from this event. Fen is not. She is still a princess, and she is still an adviser to the throne, no matter how junior. Adalei may be the one sitting on it, but Fen has a sworn duty and obligation to serve during emergency situations.
‘You cannot expect me to accept a throng of foreign Reapers into my city!’ one lord howls in protest. Fen needs to search her memory for his name and background.
He is a minor lord; his province has fewer than fifty thousand people living in three cities, mostly along trade lines.
The rest is rural farmland. At best, with Adalei’s proposal, he would have four teams sent to his province. Four Reapers only. Hardly a throng.
From the pinched look that Adalei’s giving him, she has caught on to that fact far faster than Fen had.
‘I expect you to do what needs to be done to ensure the safety and well-being of your people, or your people will be put under the care and protection of a lord who will do so,’ Adalei says icily.
He makes a sound of pure outrage that is immediately supported by other provinces.
Voices burst out from different parts of the gallery, never once letting Adalei speak.
‘Reapers can do nothing but kill – they are kept separate from us for a reason!’
‘How can life be the cause of a disease!’
‘This is Alelunen propaganda; that thing never should have been allowed to marry our king!’
That last shout draws the most support, and cheers and applause echo through the room.
Adalei, in her sun-and-moon gown, does not so much as glower.
She waits for a lull in the chattering before calmly calling each of the most aggravating dissenters out by name.
‘Lady Iris, Lord Adan, Lord Rayn. You believe this is Alelune’s doing?
Prince Consort Alest’s?’ Adalei asks them.
‘You believe that I am proposing a policy that would see Giver and Reaper teams counteract a potential contagion as means of assisting an Alelunen plot that perhaps he has orchestrated?’
‘Where did this disease come from then, if not from their kind?’ Lord Adan asks sharply.
Adalei does not so much as hesitate. ‘An overabundance of life is not naturally what a Reaper is known for, Lord Adan, or have you entirely forgotten your lessons in biology?’ Nervous laughter breaks out amongst the court.
‘We join in Alelune’s succession squabbles and suddenly a disease strikes our land?’ Iris cuts in. ‘It’s far too convenient.’
‘And for the Alelunen cities also ravaged by this disease?’ Adalei asks. ‘Are they merely propaganda to help sell the lie that you’re concocting?’
‘Your Grace,’ a new voice cuts in. Fen searches the crowd, stomach sinking when she recognizes the face. Rodans’s father. And the last person who stood in court and questioned Elician on his decisions as king.
‘Lord Hamad?’ Adalei welcomes him with measured respect, her voice neutral in all things.
‘Where is King Elician now, and why has he not returned to manage these affairs?’
It’s the question that Fen knew from the start was going to be the most difficult one to sell to the court.
Adalei pauses before she responds, carefully drawing in the air around her before letting it go.
She cannot physically straighten any more than she already has, but she seems to steady herself with a subtle tightening of her muscles.
She answers with a calm and practised tone.
‘Our kings believe that there may be a way to appease Death by petitioning her directly. They have chosen to take the incredibly dangerous journey into Alelune to meet the goddess at her temple, aiding the Alelunen people to earn her favour in the process.’ Voices have started to rise again.
She keeps talking over the echoing, booming wail of the complaints.
‘I am to manage the situation in Soleb until their return. These are the orders that I’ve been given. ’
Fen bites her tongue hard, trying desperately not to show any sign on her face that Adalei has just lied to the court.
That was not why Elician and Cat went to Alelune.
They might be planning on making a play for the crown while there, but there’s no guarantee that Death will stop the plague if she grants Cat the audience he seeks.
But, worse, Adalei made it sound like Elician would wholesale support all of her decisions regardless of what they are.
And Fen knows he would very much disagree with some of the choices she’s made already.
The court is no more satisfied than Fen is either. They start shouting again, blaming Alest and Alelune for the horrors encroaching upon their land.
‘Guards,’ Adalei says only once. The court falls quiet in a moment. ‘Please escort Lady Iris, Lord Adan and Lord Rayn from this assembly. They are no longer welcome in these halls.’
‘On what grounds?!’ Rayn shouts even as a small group of guards move to do exactly as Adalei bid. Adalei stands just as the guards reach their targets.
‘Prince Consort Alest, stello and rightful heir to the Alelunen throne, is our king’s husband.
His land is our land, his people are our people.
He has sworn himself to this country and to its future.
That is the position of this crown. Your words and actions today are treason, and I will hold them accountable as such.
Your lands are now Crownlands and will remain as extraneous territories of the crown until King Elician returns to choose new custodians.
’ Adan and Iris are screaming now, being dragged out without a single person speaking in their defence.
‘Are there any others who see the actions of our king as anything less than noble and good and the standard to which we should all strive to achieve?’ The silence is almost choking.
Fen swallows. Her mouth feels desperately dry.
‘Are there any further dissenters to the proposed health initiative?’ Again, there is nothing but silence.
‘Then I release you to conduct your duty and prepare your provinces for the difficult times that lie ahead.’
Adalei sweeps out of the room, her own guard following close behind.
Fen’s glad for them. If ever there was a time for an assassination, it would be now.
Even without such obvious signs of violence, Fen cannot help but look around the assembly as they depart.
Without Adalei there to cast judgement, the furious tension of the room has exploded again.
People are talking fast, and they are talking loudly.
Anger and frustration sweep from one corner of the room to the other.
Fen grits her teeth against it all. She needs to leave.
She needs to get to Crowen as soon as she can to meet with Elena and do her part.
Healing a city filled with those who are, or soon will be, dreadfully ill.
And doing whatever she can to help Elena find another way to help the sick if the Exalted cannot handle the workload on their own.
Someone steps in close to her side just as she is about to turn.
She startles, shifting out of the way, and looks up to see Hamad.
‘Your Highness,’ he greets, polite and respectful.
‘My lord.’ She tips her head.
‘You were at Altas? May I ask – are you all right?’
She nods. ‘Yes. Yes…I…I am well. Thank you. And your son!’ she remembers quickly. ‘Rodans…Rodans is doing very well.’
‘I am glad to hear it. Thank you.’ He bows his head to her. Then, with a hand waved back towards the chaos, admits, ‘This…all of this is so hard to believe.’
Fen nods. ‘Yes. And I…I’m sorry, but I need to go.’
‘Where are you off to next?’
‘Crowen. I will be helping the relief effort there.’
‘Crowen. So far.’
‘Yes.’
Hamad touches her arm. ‘I wish you luck, Your Highness. Truly.’
‘Thank you.’ She shifts, ready to leave, but his fingers tighten ever so slightly. Not so hard as to hurt, but enough.
‘May I ask you a question, Your Highness? To which I would appreciate an honest response?’
Fen swallows thickly. She nods.
‘Do you trust Lady Adalei is making the right decision?’
And damn her, Fen hesitates.
And damn him, Hamad notices.
‘Ah,’ he says. He rubs her arm, commiserating, gentle, kind. Then, he lets her go. ‘May I meet with you…once you’ve settled in Crowen? There are questions I’d like to ask…things I’d like to understand. My son speaks so highly of your wisdom, and I would be grateful for your counsel.’
She thinks of Rodans then. How worried he looked when she was preparing to leave. How he wished her well, even as he stayed behind with the rest of the army, to be locked away and put on rations until it was safe to once more open the gates.
She doesn’t mean to do it, but when she opens her mouth to refuse, instead – she agrees.
It isn’t until later, much later, that she realizes that he had called her Lady Adalei, and not Crown Princess as she had been elevated following Elician’s coronation. But that, in retrospect, seems like such a small slip, and she gives it no further thought.