Indrid and Anna looked horrified. Montague was sure they had seen the same woman in the bivouac.
“What a fine day to celebrate,” the gangly woman said, smiling up at the clouded sky. She held her arms out, catching drops of the cold drizzle.
The guards wasted no time and restrained her even before Lord Alexandal gave the command. Alexandal marched heavy-footed following his men. He squeezed the woman’s throat. His voice shook and his exposed teeth flaunted hatred. “What have you done to her? Why?” he thundered, shaking her like a rag. But the woman was not intimidated. She smiled almost as if she enjoyed being handled in this manner.
It became clear to Montague that the woman was prepared to die or to be taken prisoner.
The hag looked deeply into Lord Alexandal’s eyes and said with a two toned demonic voice, “What has been set in motion cannot be stopped. Soon we will take back the land you have so selfishly claimed and kept from us. It is the beginning of the fall of Ikarus, and I am proud to have been the one to initiate the process.” After she recited her warning, the macabre undertone in her voice disappeared as she laughed with a high pitched squeal, shaking her head.
“What process?” Alexandal demanded, clinching his hands tighter around her neck.
Failing to catch a breath, the woman exhaled, spitting in Alexandal’s face. He let go, slapped her then wiped the drool from his eyes.
“It shall commence through an act of rage. I, El Krea, will be the one to sacrifice my body for the victory of my people,” she growled.
“What shall commence?” Alexandal stumbled.
The mage jumped towards Alexandal, landing inches from his mouth, sniffing. “I can get drunk off of your breath,” she said, smiling and laughing hard.
Alexandal took a blade from the hands of one of his guards.
“Wait, my lord!” Montague cried, staring the mage down. Her willingness to die was obvious. Montague had read about certain curses that could only be executed by a mage through the sacrifice of her own body. Death and Possession were two that came to mind. He stepped in close to Alexandal. “It’s a trick. She wants you to kill her. Deadly spells require sacrifice. You’d be giving them what they want. And you could be killed yourself.”
The woman looked at Gretchen, who was holding the baby king, and glared a menacing smile before she exploded into another fit of laughter.
At that, Alexandal didn’t stop to consider Montague’s warnings. After swallowing three bottles of wine, he was polluted, and the woman’s screeching laughter was too provoking to stand down. Without hesitating, Alexandal thrust his blade straight through the woman’s heart. As soon as the dagger punctured her ribcage, Montague noticed Alexandal’s expression slowly change from pain to relief. His face became flushed and his eyes bloodshot. Darkened veins bulged from his neck.
Montague knew this was a sign of possession, of witchcraft.
When the woman’s body fell to the ground, Alexandal remained silent and stoic, prattling between breaths.
“My lord,” Montague asked, hoping for a reaction. But there was none.
Then, Alexandal’s eyes narrowed as if in deep concentration. It seemed to Montague that the high lord of Ikarus was listening to someone talking in his head—but whom?
Since the day the new king was born it hadn’t stopped raining. The world of Naan was entering its eighth summer without a day of clear sky. The weather was cooler than usual and not much grew. Occasionally, there were weeks when the normal deluge lessened to a light drizzle, but clouds shadowed the land. The relentless rain made the soil so muddy that tree roots had lost the ability to hold the ground and were easily toppled by tired winds. It was even harder to travel. Both the lives of horses and men had been taken by mudslides at the bottom of the plateau. Not even the mages dared to make drastic moves against the civilized world.
In less than a decade alone there had been more deaths caused by an attack or natural disaster than human civilization had experienced in the past hundred. First, a great sickness had plagued the land, then, water had destroyed Illyrium, Grale and Mern had been burned to the ground, Ikarus had suffered a great drought, Queen Olivia Volpi had died during childbirth, and now the clouds deprived land and crop of light.
Soaking wet, Montague La-Rose entered the Ikarus council room in the middle of deliberation. An angry conversation between Temple representatives and the Ikarus commanding officer grew louder by the second. This was the first time a meeting had begun without the speaker.
“It’s been eight years!” the Ikarus general shouted.
“This topic has been exhausted, General,” said Elmer Mongs, a high priest of The Temple.
“All we have done in response to the queen’s attack was hanging a dozen members of a small mage clan. None of them were even connected to the incident. I understand that the evidence suggested that the woman responsible for the attack on the queen led that very clan, but there are hundreds of clans aligned with the same plot to ruin us. People are still demanding a response, my lord,” the Ikarus general said. He’d replaced Alexandal when the late queen’s betrothed was promoted to steward.
Riots erupted throughout the kingdom when the people found out that their beloved sacred leader of Men had been attacked by an exile. The unrest had lasted days before settling. Alexandal had promised retaliation, but the kingdom saw none.
Mongs responded. “We still don’t know where the mages have been gathering. There are free-folks living in the Great Flats. And mages are living among them, in disguise. The truth is that we don’t know who the enemy is. This subject has been discussed again and again. We don’t want to kill innocent people, do we?”
“So we do nothing?” the general’s voice rang with
