Chapter 4 #3
It was the aftermath of it that was still fuzzy, the next few months spent adjusting to losing the woman he’d been bonded to for the better part of a decade, withdrawing from his pack, lashing out, to the point that Boada had to permanently separate his sleeping quarters from the others’.
It was considered disrespectful to mourn the dead, selfish to miss them…
and so, Argos didn’t mourn. He raged. He plotted.
After all, revenge wasn’t technically mourning, not if it was used to punish someone who had hurt others, too.
“Any other Warrior would have left her body alone,” Boada went on, “but you didn’t. You couldn’t. That shows so much heart, Argos. You feel deeply, and that is what’s needed for this mission.”
Boada didn’t chastise him when he began to growl, a reaction that was his natural defense against the accusation that he was soft.
“You’ve been claimed before, so you understand how to be in a relationship,” she went on.
“You’re used to hunting alone, so can go about your duties without assistance.
You have the patience of a saint—if she hesitates in her commands, I know you’ll have the Honor and self-control to help her.
And you have the emotional capacity to comfort Theora through one of the hardest things she’s ever had to do. ”
You think too much of me, he wanted to say. I can barely comfort myself…
When Argos surfaced from his thoughts, he found Boada watching him. “You’re a man of Honor, so I’ll give you a better reason. Tell me, what is a Warrior’s purpose?”
“To honor the Sovereign in everything,” he replied, not quite understanding where she was going with her question…because Boada always had a point, even if she took a moment to get to it.
“Very true. But how about in connection to the queen?”
Argos didn’t dare scoff at his handler, even if the question itself was laughable to him. “Hunt down people she wants dead? Fight her wars? I don’t know.”
Boada raised a brow. “Close. But those are more functions than purpose.”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure what answer you’re looking for, ma’am. We hadn’t been in active war for decades before a year ago.”
“If the Crown hired more handlers, as they did generations ago, that wouldn’t be an issue. Which brings me to my point: that a Warrior’s purpose, in the ancient ways as well as the new, is to protect the queen.”
Argos didn’t fill Boada’s pause, despite the fact that he was still confused. Two hundred Warriors, secluded from society, with nothing to do but protect the queen from…what, exactly? Before the Vespulan war, there had been no threat to her life.
“Before the new monarchy was formed,” Boada went on, “Queens had Knights, individuals blessed with powerful magic, who protected the colony and the Honor of their queen. Back then, each Knight had a handler assigned to them. They were a team, bodyguarding for the queen and her family, defending the borders of the colony, or going out to slay enemies in her name. Those Knights are now what we call Warriors.”
Argos shook his head, the reality of her words hitting him all too hard. “So what you’re saying is that I was never meant to be anything more than a bodyguard to the queen? Just like I am now?”
“I’m saying the queen was hand-selected by the Sovereign to rule.” Boada planted her hands on his shoulders. “Just as you were hand-selected by the Sovereign to protect her.”
Argos wiped the remainder of threatening tears from his eyes, sitting in her words for a moment.
He’d never thought of it from that perspective…
that he was divinely chosen to have Warrior magic.
That it pleased the Sovereign not only that he obey Boada and his wife, but that he service his queen.
It was almost painful to admit that she was right.
He took a deep breath, then shoved to his feet. “Because Honor says so, I’ll accept her back.”
“Attaboy,” Boada said with the slightest grin. “Until this evening, get out of the barracks. It’s no good for you to go about your day with constant judgment.”
Argos excused himself from Boada’s presence with a bow of his head.
After all, perhaps he had given up too easily. Theora had married him the Warrior way, and, as she was an outsider to his culture, he was Honor bound to instruct her on such things. To correct her.
Or to make sure she felt silly for ever humiliating him.
Whichever came first.
Either way, he would be damned before he’d let some pretty little Docile taint his Warrior’s Honor.
Tracking her where she was currently working would ruin the secrecy of the mission, but the last thing he wanted to do was sit around all day waiting for her. He needed to pray…and then he needed to do something.
On top of the capitol building was a dome made of crystal windows. He’d seen it, even sat on it before, while out on hunts, but all he knew about the inside was that there was some sort of large room with hundreds of chairs and tables built and arranged to form a circle around one central point.
It was the perfect place to petition the Sovereign.
Argos stopped at Theora’s room—his room now—grabbed a throw blanket, and headed out into the hall. The easier route was the roof, but ever since the war began, guards armed with crossbows patrolled there, and he wasn’t looking to make trouble.
The only question was, how did one track crystal windows? They had a scent, but he hadn’t much noticed it the last time he’d seen them. Just…heat. Excessive magnified heat and sand.
It was a bright, sunny day, without even the threat of clouds. A bit too bright for his comfort, but then most of his life he’d been locked away in the barracks, only going outside when he’d been assigned a hunt. Even then, it was usually evening into night.
But where there was a giant domed window, there was concentrated sunlight, and where there was too much sun…there was the potent scent of sweating bodies.
The halls of the residential side of the capitol were carpeted. Quiet. Every room was separate, divided by wall spaces and…doors. So many doors. As if everyone had to protect themselves from being randomly murdered by each other.
Well, after seeing how passionate Theora was…maybe they did.
The business side of the capitol wasn’t much harder to navigate.
Most of the security seemed to be on the outside of the building, from what Argos had seen.
Lots of identifications and searches before even being allowed through the first set of doors, most guests by invitation only.
But the inside was…well, he’d been sent on hunts to colonies with far less security and technology, but it certainly wasn’t complicated.
The scents around here were sharp and distinguishable; alcoves and closets to hide in were plentiful, with easily climbable wall fixtures.
A beautiful building, but if an assassin ever happened to get through the advanced security on the outside, they would have an easy time completing their mission.
Perhaps, at the end of all this, Theora might take some of his advice on how to make that less of a risk.
He knew he was in the right place when the scents escalated to an unpleasant combination. He singled out the two on the hall—guards, undoubtedly. And Theora was most definitely in that room.
He scaled the wall toward the high ceiling, watching the guards below him as he made his way down the hall to the high window. It was easy enough to pick the latch, and he just fit through, entering the large room.
Argos stood up on the scaffolding, squinting from the bright sun before putting the blanket over his head to block it—he didn’t have half the amount of melanin required to survive the intensity of this magnified heat, and he wasn’t ashamed to protect himself.
But the sun was the Eye of the Sovereign, and Izzi used to say that praying in direct sight of it brought on more immediate answers to prayers. There was no time like the present to test the method.
He had a feeling he would need all the help he could get with this stubborn little queen.
Speaking of whom…Argos peered down into the room, where a meeting of parliament was in session, and addressing everyone from the center was Theora.
There was a glass ceiling blocking him from understanding everything that was said, but he could recognize Theora’s voice through miles of stone if he had to.
He grinned. Her voice was calm and regal.
Commanding, but not forceful. Controlled.
This was her comfort zone, in a way that relationships clearly weren’t.
Argos held the blanket out like a canopy so he could see his feet as he walked along one of the support beams to the middle.
He lay down directly in the center of the beam, keeping the blanket over his face, closing his eyes to chase out the rest of the light.
There was nothing but a red glow through his eyelids now…
but it calmed him. It felt like a confirmation before he’d even said a word.
And there, with his wife’s voice soothing him at his back and the Sovereign gazing at him from above, he prayed.