Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
LYRA
Everything plunges into uncivilized chaos.
Noblemen and women trample each other in their attempts to flee.
Those skilled in combat, talented at wielding their Houses’ exceptional magics, fight back.
Angry swords are plunged into the backs of the fallen.
Daggers are jabbed into thighs and necks.
Spears are thrown across the room as carelessly as celebratory ribbons.
It leaves the once dazzling, crystal-filled ballroom painted in blood and rubble.
And for the second time in my life, I am ensconced in the belly of savagery as a gory battle rages before my eyes.
This time, however, I have control over my magic thanks to Casimir’s extensive training.
Fire is the first element to answer my call—an increasingly annoying feature, it would seem.
I allow the element to feel at one with my veins, coloring them vermillion beneath my skin while the mark at my back burns in the place where the fire symbol resides.
I bend my knees and sway my hands as I gather the force of my attack in my palms.
I let the fire blaze.
It incinerates two archers, one of whom had their arrow notched and directed at me, the other of whom was aiming in the opposite direction.
Nausea roils through me at the sight. For the duration of a blink, I see my mother burnt amongst them.
I drop my palms and demand the fire magic to flee my veins. I do not wish to wield fire; in fact, I want nothing to do with it.
Though, speaking of fire…
I search for Kiran, but can no longer see him.
In the midst of the chaos, we were separated.
At the initial explosion, he reached for me and shielded me with his body, putting his back between me and the rubble.
Yet as the invaders raided the ballroom—shouts from distant guards announcing they had infiltrated the whole of Sagamon Castle—scurrying partygoers frightened for their lives wedged us apart.
Now, I find myself standing in my own corner of the room, fighting against an isolated section of the rebellion.
Which leaves me with the question: why am I fighting them?
But then a jolt of lightning reaches for me—making the air look like a bed of fracturing ice—and suddenly that question doesn’t matter. Surviving does.
I spin, pulling at wind that thankfully answers for once, redirecting myself away from the attack with just enough time.
It crashes into the floor and ceiling alike, sending even more of the hovering ice crystals plummeting toward the ground, shattering like glass against the marble.
Three people with handkerchiefs covering the lower portion of their faces surround me.
“Who are you people?” I ask, my palms raised at the ready.
The one farthest left—a woman with braided hair and worn eyes—unsheathes a broadsword from her back. “We are the uprising. The Reapers of Righteousness. The Restorers of the original ways. We are the Restorationists.”
There’s a familiarity to the title I can’t quite place…
“And what do you want? What are you restoring?”
“She already told you,” another woman, located on the right, spits. “The original ways. The ways of old. The ways which these lands were originally founded upon.” A pool of glowing blue energy accumulates in her palm, but she doesn’t strike. None of the three do.
At the small reprieve, without my consent—now not being the time nor the place—my brain wanders, leaping headfirst into all the stored memories I have of Casimir’s journal.
They do not come back to me easily, but my mind is relentless in its determination to remember.
Small echoes from different passages ring out in my head.
I understand that the discord is growing, and that soon, we will be forced to choose: squelch the uprising and deal with the Restorationists, or choose a path of peace and continue negotiations through the means of compromise;
Magaius does not believe we should concede a single thing to the Restorationists. That they are simply unhappy children, and that one does not reward children’s bad behavior;
War is coming.
From what I remember, it was all in regard to the Three King System.
I had been shocked to learn there was discourse surrounding the change.
Our history books have never told us anything of the sort, instead maintaining the narrative that there was only a peaceful division of power amongst the lands of Solaya after The Great Clamaté War—not before.
Yet Casimir’s account of history renders that version impossible, his timeline of events entirely different.
And that’s the other thing. History does not tell us of a group known as the Restorationists.
Historians do not mention opposition to the signing of the Three King Accords, nor do they mention an uprising opposing it.
Yet Casimir does, and now, standing here before me is a group of rebels claiming the title of a people who allegedly never existed.
I study the group as though they hold all the answers I seek. Perhaps they do. “And what are the ways of old? The ways you seek to restore?”
The figure at the center, not having moved nor spoken since they surrounded me, drops the hood covering his face.
The man has skin weathered with age, eyes like a glass of brandy.
He is rough, yet he does not appear unkind.
“The Three King System was created to facilitate greater aid to both the lower class of people and noble houses. Famine plagued the lands while poverty plagued the pockets. Our realm was in a state of unrest, and there was a need for great change. Yet once the last unitary king died—leaving behind not a single heir—those already positioned for power acted, dividing the lands and creating new borders, realigning politics and economics with the change. For a time, this seemed beneficial. With less to rule over, Kings and Houses could better serve their people. Yet they didn’t.
Nothing changed for the farmers and the blacksmiths and the tradesmen.
Somehow, instead, the rich got richer while the poor got poorer.
” He takes one step toward me. “Do you know why?”
I can’t decide if I should answer him or not. Luckily, he continues in spite of my silence.
“It is because all the partitions truly did was give hungry men more power; put boundaries on squabbles, then labeled the division of laws and politics as ‘The Great Era of Peace.’” He huffs a cold, dry laugh.
“There has been no peace in the forgotten slums. In the forsaken farmlands and within the mining towns.
“Tell me, how is it that nearly all of Erandor suffers from hunger, disease, and economic distress while the rich watch their coffers grow more plentiful? Why do the other kings not intervene? What are we supposed to do if those who are meant to supply the checks and balances do nothing? I’ll tell you: we rebel.
Because what Solaya needs is not three kings and scheming noble houses—it needs one unitary king.
It needs cohesion and prosperity. We are through watching our realm be the backdrop for the insatiable greed of power-crazed men.
So instead, we will restore the ways of old whilst seeking to form a new pyramid of government beneath a new king—one which maintains the necessary checks and balances of power. ”
I study the man and his companions, monitoring for any signs of a forming attack. “What good will that do?”
The man cocks his head at her. “What good will it hurt? All things here are already broken. Look around” —the man glides his arms in a sweeping gesture, showcasing the saccharine ballroom, so lavish it chokes one with its richness— “this is how they live. How they spend their coffers, content to laugh and drink and fuck. I have two boys, both of whom show bone through their skin. Tell me, girl, do you have the slightest idea how bad the slums have gotten? Just how impoverished the world outside of nobility truly is?”
The question strikes me. Not with offense, but guilt.
No.
I don’t.
Though I’ve felt like a slave to this system, I still lived in a king’s estate for nearly the entirety of my life.
Then, once I was freed of that, I traversed to Bathara, the most elite academy of any in the realm.
Then I was kidnapped, living in a sprawling garden oasis, housed in silken sheets and fine rugs.
I’ve always condemned nobility. Have always felt the chip on my shoulder from being surrounded by them yet entirely on the outside, forced to bear that truth like a nasty brand they could always exploit.
Yet I’ve lived more closely to them than most. Because of my position with King Alastair, I always had food.
A bed. Access to healers. I received a top-notch education from Sterling Nightenjoy, one of the most brilliant men in the entire Three Kingdoms. Was trained in court manners and taught to understand politics.
I was privileged to have a security of sorts, as twisted as that is to think about.
I’ve never had to worry about if I will starve.
How to put food on my table. If I will make it past the coming winter.
Sure, my life as a night attendant was not a glorious nor particularly safe one, but with its atrocities came comforts that not even I can deny.
No, I haven’t the slightest clue what the world outside of nobility is like, and bile burns the back of my throat with that realization. It forces me to wonder: if I do not belong with them, and I do not belong with nobility, where, then, do I actually belong?