The horses were struggling for breath as the road ended. I felt bad, promising myself they'd each get an extra bag of apples and rest for their efforts. But even as my mount shook like a leaf beneath the saddle, I still dug my heels into the horse's side. "Come on, girl. We're almost home."
The horse cried out but persevered. I felt close to crying, looking over the letter smeared with ink. I'd crunched it between my fingers for most of the ride, and even now I had to force each one to unlock, stiff from maintaining their positions.
My small caravan turned along the road, entering the valley mouth; our journey was nearing its end. The loyal soldiers beside me, each reluctantly abusing their mounts to continue their dutiful escort. The collection of panting and yelping horses filled the air. One of the horses caught its hoof in exhaustion and took a tumble, sending it and its rider careening off the path.
I turned to three of the others. "Go help that man! You don't need to rush any longer. The capitol is just ahead."
They nodded and peeled off, moving to the side of the road before slowing. I could feel the resentful gazes of all the others who stayed by my side. In truth, it wasn't only the horses I'd pushed to their limits. We'd been riding for nearly two days and nights without rest. To cross half of the empire's territory, we'd already left three groups of horses behind in some city or town along the path. It didn't matter though. I could apologize to the men later, give them breeds from the royal herds, help them find their discarded animals, pay them, or whatever they wanted. We just needed to make it home first.
The wall finally met us, halting our progress. The capital was a funny thing. Instead of building the defensive barriers closer to their homes, our ancestors had planned far into the future, nearly setting the meters-thick walls at the valley walls. It was why, when most cities in the world grew vertically after a certain point, Kondt was still expanding horizontally. I banged a brick with my fist, shouting for attention.
Dozens of heads peeked over the edge. One of them was a soldier I'd held conversations with on occasion. His young face lit up like a star, and he was the first to withdraw, hollering, "His Highness has returned! Open the gates!"
Even the grumpy escorts couldn't keep a smile from their faces, hearing their junior's levity. The gate, a monstrous thing of the finest metals, creaked before beginning its journey up. I waited until the points on the ends were far above my head. One of my guards cantered to my side and elbowed me. "Still paranoid over Jerjuti, your Highness?"
Helka. As much as I hated the captain's lack of tact and her complete disregard for rank and nobility, she was too good for her job. She'd be a general by now if she showed a little restraint, but as things stood, she was happy enough to stick by my side.
Or maybe that was what annoyed me. That she was always nearby, ready to strike up a conversation about the most ridiculous of things. Or could it be that I was merely losing my temper prematurely with someone younger than me?
I smacked her shoulder. "You weren't there when the enemy general pulled that stunt. I was lucky enough to be alive after that."
We made our way through the tunnel. Helka's perpetual smirk turned into a genuine smile as she breathed in deep. The rest of us did the same. It was said by those who visited the capitol that the air smelled different. Like pines and maga. I used to say it smelled like justice, too, but that was before the letter came. Brought back to reality, I crushed the letter again. I turned to the rest of my guard. "You're off-duty as of this moment. You can rest at the wall's barracks or head right home. I'll be off, then."
A second thought grabbed me before I was too far. I called over my shoulder, "See me for compensation after you've settled in!"
That brought up a wild cheer. I'd traded in my exhausted mount for a fresh one and put it to work immediately. We tore down the road, now a refined cobble instead of sand or paved dirt. The trees hid most of my progress, but the tallest buildings were visible from even beyond the wall. My eyes were locked onto the biggest of them all. Salcori Palace. My home. And my sister's.
I'd reached the edge of the forest, emerging with a frenzied look in my eyes. A collection of men from a builder's guild were startled at my passing, but their gasps quickly turned into cheers. "His Highness has returned!"
I came across other members of the local builder's guild. They'd been busy. In the years I'd been away, they'd constructed several new districts and pushed back the forest's borders. I navigated my way through a fresh residential district, slowing the horse. Even on the outskirts, the capitol was already bustling and close to feeling crushing. Has there been more internal immigration lately?
I'd reached a new wall, this one less impressive than the one guarding the valley. It served its purpose well enough though. After a brief check, I was through, observing a new variety of people in this section of the city. The nobles had passed their segregation initiative after all. I rolled my eyes in irritation. Even while a war was concluding, the noble heads still thought about nothing other than how to blackmail each other or add another difference between them and the rest of the populace. They buried their heads in the sand to ignore every other problem plaguing the empire.
Everywhere I went, I saw adults and children alike pointing and cheering. It warmed my heart when even the normally stoic guards cracked smiles at my passing and joined in.
Then, the final wall. This one was the same as I remembered it, albeit washed clean of the usual playful dyes that children smeared across the stones. A man was waiting by the gates, his hand outstretched for the reins, I dismounted, and traded them for a waterskin. He waited patiently while I guzzled the entirety of the contents. I pulled it away, wiping my lips. He bowed an arm across his chest. "Welcome home, Highness."
"Thank you. Let me in."
"Of course." The man straightened, placing his hand on the wall. It glowed orange, spooking the birds perched on the nearby lamp posts. "Would you like this horse delivered to the royal stables?"
"No." I waited till the gate was up, then jogged through, calling over my shoulder, "Send it back to the garrison at your earliest convenience!"
I caught a "Your will, Highness" before the gates were shut again. I took a breath, again appreciating the pine. But my legs were moving as if possessed, sprinting through the gardens and courtyards I normally stopped to spend my time among. I could do that later.
The letter was a constant reminder, weighing me down. I needed this resolved. How could she just choose to do this, after everything we'd been through? It wasn't right, wasn't just.
She was still mad with grief. I only needed to convince her of that, make her see she wasn't in her right mind. Impaired rulers made for bad rulers. That was what our parents taught us. And it was what I'd have to remind her of.
I charged into the reception hall, grabbing the nearest maid. She quieted a gasp. "Y-your Highness, welcome back!"
"Thank you, Gertrude. Do you know where my sister is?"
"She should be in her study. Thank god you've returned! She hasn't eaten properly in weeks, and I'm worried for--"
"Don't worry. I'll talk with her." Oh, would I be talking with her. I made my way through the castle, my muscles and joints in utter agony like always after the seventh floor. Why, oh why, couldn't our predecessors just have settled for something like nine stories? No, anything but that. They had to make it as large and imposing as their engineers could safely get away with, so what did they do? Almost five and thirty stories made the Salcori Palace a titan of legend among builders. And for those who had to live in it? To put things as gently as possible, there had never been an overweight ruler of the Salcori Empire in all the time it'd existed as a political entity.
I stopped by my chambers, ditching most of the armor on the floor. I could discard the war general persona after. One of the maids was already tailing me, collecting the scattered pieces.
After another twelve floors, I reached the outer cordon of rooms. Facing the midday sun as it'd be, I knew she'd have the curtains drawn. Knocking, I pushed down the anger. I had to remain cordial with her. She deserved that much after everything, after all.
Her voice was muffled through the door. "I told you, Gertrude, I'm not hungry. Please leave it be."
I knocked again. "Gertrude. I told you."
And again. "Gertrude, if this is some game you--"
And again. "Fine!"
Waiting, I heard frenzied movement from the other side. The door flew open. And then I blinked again. "Who are you and what have you done with my sister?"
Her weeks of malnourishment hadn't been kind to her. Her skin looked sallow, and her normally shiny curtain of brown locks were limp and sad. I pulled her close, wincing as a thinner frame returned the hug. She'd been suffering in her way. I needed to remember that.
She was the first to break the embrace, drawing me into the study and closing the door. "When did you get back?"
"Just now. I came to see you immediately." I pressed a separate letter onto the desk. "I'm sorry about your newborn."
Her eyes, if that were possible, became less devoid of life. "You mean stillborn. It's fine, you don't need to massage the situation."
"How's the curse progressing?" It wasn't the best change of topics, but her pain was still too fresh.
She opened her vest in response. My first instinct was to avert my eyes. "Saxin. You can look."
With her permission, I lowered my hand. The pulsating red markings had spread. They reached from her collarbone to her stomach, twisting over her chest and around her arms. She waited until I had my fill, then covered herself. "Eating is mostly too painful now. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to fight it."
"I'm sorry. I should've stopped them before--"
"Stop apologizing." That firmness I loved so dearly peeked past the deadness. More. I wanted her back to herself, her normal self. "The first series of battles and sieges were experimental. Neither of us had a grasp of things yet."
"Fine. Then…there's something I'd like to discuss." I took the other letter out. The ink-smeared one. I pushed it over to her side of the desk. She frowned, unfurling it and reading through it.
I wasn't sure what I expected. Shame? An apology? Excuses? But what I wouldn't have expected in a thousand lives was for her to smile. The chuckle started low in her throat. "Tell me, did Shafeg obtain this for you?"
"Yes." I waited for her to say something, anything.
But nothing. She placed her chin on her arms, reminding me of a snake lying in wait. So I went on. "What made you decide this? Without my input?"
"Why would I need your input on this matter?"
"Because we're co-rulers, Felene. If nothing else, you should've felt an obligation to inform me."
"Why?" Her face twisted. "I knew how you'd react. You're just building up to it."
"That's not the point. How can you order the Jekketh citizens into internment camps?"
"We need to secure the lands and subdue whatever resistance remains first. Another priority is to rescue all the soldiers and maga-bloods that have been imprisoned throughout the war. We--"
"Our priority should be to not become monsters like the Jekketh!" I slammed the desk. "Where's your sense of shame?"
"What shame?! What does the Salcori Empire have to be ashamed of, Saxin? We were not the ones that broke away. We were not the ones that outlawed maga-bloods and condemned those that could not hide their gifts to a life in prisons and dungeons, of torture and shame! We were not even the ones who initiated this war! We never attacked their doctors on the front lines! We never broke the terms of a white flag! We never stooped low enough to use children as bargaining chips!"
Her fist slammed into the desk near mine. "So tell me. Why should I take mercy upon those monsters when they would've gutted us all like pigs and slept it off without so much as a second thought?"
"Because we are better. We can be better than them. Yes. Their generals were ruthless monsters who did anything they could to turn a loss into a stalemate, and a stalemate into a victory. They have done terrible things to their prisoners, and the soldiers are equally at fault for following orders as if they were hearing God's decree! I would wholeheartedly throw my support behind this culling even if you tossed in the Jekketh royalty. But you should've drawn the line at those who were involved with the war."
"Who wasn't involved in a four-generational war? The farmers supplied their efforts, the cobblers and the builders were detained to build their engines of war, their educators endorsed the propaganda that kept the war effort strong, their doctors entered wartime to send their dying at us over and over; they invested every part of their society and culture into breaking us, but we broke them. Why shouldn't we worry about ourselves first?"
"You said it yourself! They were detained: not every participant in the war did so willingly. We both know the soldiers were mostly conscripts. We know their wartime supplies were seized from unwilling sources. We know their maga-lords were made from the blood of a dozen maga-blood each. Does that make them complicit in the crimes as well?!"
"You need to harden your bleeding heart. Do you think this war will be the last?"
That brought pause. "What are you saying?"
She pushed a journal to me, along with half-a-dozen sheaves of paper. "The whole world is against the existence of maga-bloods. We are seen as the spawn of Satan, unholy creatures that walk in human form but are nothing more than the devil-blood that runs through our veins. We see things that shouldn't exist; we can move mountains, make rainfall at our beck and call, reinvigorate the dying, or even command the dead themselves."
She stabbed a finger at the map sprawled beneath every other bit of clutter. "Do you think that the Jekketh Empire had the guts to face us without support? No. They weren't even the ones who discovered the method to turn non-maga into a maga-lord. A coalition of other countries funded their research, their military, and their society at large. The only reason the Jekketh Empire was chosen as the trial champion to confront the Salcori Empire was because it would be the easiest choice to avoid arousing our suspicion. And indeed, for three generations, we fought a bloody war only thinking the Jekketh were after nothing more than honor or national pride. Yes, they rejected maga-bloods like the rest of the world, but that was a part of their culture."
"Shafeg's network is vast, stretching across the known world. In nearly every group of note, he has eyes, ears, and mouths. If not for his efforts and organization, we wouldn't know the rest of the world is staring at us like hungry wolves. They know now that they can't beat us at our own game. Maga-bloods will always be the masters of magic, no matter what their sciences will conjure. But what about a numbers game?"
She picked up a paperweight. It was a rook. "A maga-blood that can create fire from nothing can easily kill a hundred men. But what will that matter when there are a thousand out for their blood? A maga-blood that can dispel the wounds of their comrades can power a war effort far better than a strong supply chain could. But what will that matter when there are hundreds of their comrades needing treatment at the same time? It doesn't matter if each of us individually can become the richest people in the world, or wipe a town off the map. They will merely crush us in a tide of warriors."
She dropped the rook in my open palm, back to being poised like a snake. "So, yes. I am willing to turn us into monsters if it means we can cannibalize the territory and resources of the Jekketh fast enough. I am willing to commit just as many atrocities as the Jekketh have done unto us if it means we will be ready by the time the rest of the empires have rallied their armies and completed their works of science. I am willing to give my life and limbs if it means we will survive the coming storm. The Salcori-Jekketh War was just a taste, Saxin."
"The question is, are you?"