The sun had set.
The light was gone.
The shadows reigned.
We were hunting.
The halls were bathed in legions of shadows, but I was no longer afraid. The shadows protected us. Echoes of history chased us as we moved. I could still feel the stains of blood that he spilt, the screams of the lives he ended, but why? Why kill so many? Why them?
Exhaustion burdened me with its weight and the longing for rest were like chains but I continued. The silence was fragile but smothering, like a mist on a cold winters night. Still, no creature with any will to live, no matter how small, dared to destroy it. The mice stayed in their holes, the flies stayed outside and we... well, we were idiots. Curiosity killed the cat, that's the saying, isn't it?
Each footstep was calculated to ensure our lives continuance. One trip, one yell, one word and I would be killed. One step, another step, another, keep going. I followed only an outstretched arm, whose body was already consumed by darkness merely a few steps away. We daren't carry a lamp that may scare off our only armour.
I let out a small gasp as I crashed into someone.
"Amara, we are here." the lightest whisper washed into my ear. I looked at the figure in front of me, obscured but still recognizable.
"Aria, did you bring the key?" I replied, terrified of being heard. She didn't reply and turned towards the door. A click answered my question instead. We entered the ever darker room.
"Hey, Aria can you light a torch or some-"
A burning light filled the room. It radiated through my eyes as I winced. I crawled towards the door, and pulled it shut to avoid the light from bleeding into the hallway.
"Spirits! Aria! Some warning please!"
Smiling awkwardly, she placed the magically generated ball of light on a desk in the centre of the room. King Tristan's office was the most gorgeous place I had ever seen. Ornamentary weapons lay in expertly crafted, mahogany cabinets, along with medals and crowns on ivory pedestals. Winding bookcases with abstract shapes were filled to the brim with history books and war novels. Paintings of a Child King beaming on a horse hung next to the stone cold glare of the Tyrant I know now. Telescopes and diagrams of constellations and stars filled every inch of wall that hadn't already been taken. Chairs and desks weren't lined with gold or silver as they had been in every other, but they were crafted so that every inch was a masterpiece, every curve told a story.
Yet, I could not draw my eyes from the skylight that hung above our heads. Coloured glass and jewels locked together in a beautiful union. When light passed through it, a fountain of rainbow would spill upon the floor, the walls, the paintings. Every angle that you looked at it from gave a different perfection, just like the liquid he is so addicted too.
"He wasn't always as he is now, you know." Aria began, solemnly. She was staring at a painting of a princess and her father, laughing, smiling, loving. It was almost hidden by stacks of books and chests but it was still visible.
"I remember, when I was little, he used to take me out to the gardens and he would read to me. Sometimes it was about history, other times astronomy, but I loved it most when he would read one particular book." She walked toward the bookcase and selected one that worn, and old. On the cover it said; The secrets of Botany and how to keep them. Tears began to well in her eyes.
"He would show me different plants and how to care for them. And he would show me how yo use them in recipes. Even when he stopped having time to read for me, he would allow me into his private greenhouse to study his plants."
"What happened?" I asked softly.
"The War of Blood and Roses. I don't know what happened but afterwards he... changed. He stopped talking to me unless he wanted something from me. He blocked off his private gardens, locked his office and closed the doors, at least for me. He kept loving my brother. Just... I guess he no longer had time for his second born."
I wanted to say something, to comfort her, to reach put and embrace her. I wanted to tell her that her father still loved her. Something me stopped me, I knew that she was vulnerable and to connect would be to make me vulnerable too. I- I couldn't do it.
Aria hastily dried her tears and continued to search the room. Oh, right, the records. I pulled my eyes from the paintings and began crawling though chest upon chest of expensive paraphernalia, not a file in sight.
"Are you sure King Tristan keeps the records in here? I can't see anything other than random, rich person stuff." I said after about half an hour of searching.
"Yeah, Father is... controlling. He wants easy access to every bit of information he can. The easiest place would be to hide it in here somewhere."
I sighed and began looking under carpets for hidden trap doors. When I was unsuccessful, I found myself taking another look at the paintings. They were all perfectly aligned, except one. I edged towards the portrait. It hung awkwardly from the wall; scratch marks whitened the grey stone behind, as if it was usually moved around. There.
"Hey, Aria, I think I found it."
I pulled the portrait away from the wall. Bland and wooden, the door behind it was easy to prise open with a dagger Aria found. The hidden room was nothing like the office. Stuffy and dusty, the walls were ugly and grey; boxes of files pilled higher and higher; the pitiful attempts at decoration were flattened by ever more cobwebs and spiders. This was not the room a King had attached to his office, unless what we were looking for is here.
"Look for anything labelled with sacrifice, A-1657, anything like that. We need to know what is going on here."
After our discovery of the massacre, me and Aria had spent ages planning how to figure out what was going on. We checked everywhere we could. We searched General Kyra's quarters. We tried to figure out the pattern of who was coming in. We tried to find the allusive third Nobleman. To no avail. This was our last idea. This had to be were the files were hidden.
One crate caught my eye. It was labelled: Line A. As something inside me prompted, I made a beeline straight for it. I pulled one of the files out randomly.
Farm: Dracur Diven
Line: A
Class: Domestic
Identification: A-3496
Gender: Female
Condition: Harvested
A-3496 was born February 3rd of the union by A-6789 and F-7892. It was a second generation. As it reached the age of twelve, it followed its biological mother into the sector of Domestic work as it was rewarded for good faith, and good behaviour. A-3496 was matched at the age of fourteen and until its harvest , bore five offspring. A-6484, A-5374, A-5383, A-9268, A-6934. It was harvested prematurely due to a growing attachment and later infection of a male subject, G-7984. Both were harvested without issue or compromise.
I handed it to Aria, who read it aloud. Sickness poured over me. I didn't even really know what I was hearing but every word was grotesque. The way they referred to them as 'harvested' and 'it' made my blood freeze.
"Find another file." I said, a vomit inducing realisation coming to me. For an hour I searched, until I found what I was praying wasn't there.
Farm: Dracur Diven
Line: A
Class: Domestic
Identification: A-6789
Gender: Male
Condition: Training
A-6789 was taken at the age of one by capturing unit 56 on January 18th. It was born of disowned member of the Nykral Family. It has no living relatives. A-6789 is too young to work at five years old.
"She was... this is worse than I thought. I believed they were just rebels or criminals and that's why my father killed them. But no, this not a simple execution. They were harvested. This was planned. They were forced into having children so the program could sustain itself. These people aren't considered human..."
"This boy. I know who he is."
Aria's head spun round so fast I thought her neck would crack. As her eyes fell on the page, she gasped and dropped the paper. At that moment, as our eyes locked, a plan began to formulate. Without words. Our shared fire burned between us, a determination that couldn't be extinguished. With just the look, we knew what we were going to do. Aria smirked, throwing the rest of the files onto the floor.
"We need to free your brother."