I checked around us for others but we appeared to be alone.
“Show me your wrists!” I said.
The farmer held up his shaking hands. His sleeves slid down.
There were no folds of skin around his wrists. He wasn’t a Changeling.
He was defending his property from what he assumed were dangerous criminals.
Us.
Hazel placed her hand on my arm. I lowered the weapon.
“I take it you’re resistance fighters,” the farmer said, keeping his arms up.
“Yes,” I said. “You can put your arms down. We’re not going to hurt you.”
The farmer peered between me and Hazel before lowering them.
“Have you seen any Changeling soldiers around here?” I said.
“No, sir,” he said. “We’re friendly with the resistance. We’ve seen many fighters passing through this way.”
Many fighters.
Then there was a chance the resistance might still be alive…
“Come,” he said. “We have food and water. You must be tired.”
Food. Water. A bed.
I glanced at Hazel, who smiled expectantly.
“That would be great, thank you,” I said.
I handed the rifle back to the farmer.
He aimed it at the ground.
“You’re going to have to show me that move again,” he said. “In slow motion next time. Come. Follow me.”
I followed him into the house. He introduced us to his wife and two children. The young boy I had already seen, and his older sister. The children seemed shy and quickly ran upstairs.
“Sorry,” the farmer said. “They’ve learned to become wary of strangers.”
“Did you come from one of the tribes?” the farmer’s wife said.
She turned on the stove to heat some stew.
“Yes,” I said. “The Urcim tribe.”
“We heard about what happened there,” the farmer said. “Is it as bad as they say?”
“Worse,” I said.
The farmer’s wife used a ladle to dish the stew out into two bowls and placed them on the table before me and Hazel. Then she cut some bread into slices and gave us each a piece.
We dug in. As we had company, we ate slowly. Although, if Hazel was even half as hungry as I was, she could have wolfed it down the same way we did with the bread earlier.
“Those damn Changelings!” the farmer said, slamming his fist on the table.
The farmer’s wife placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder.
“It’s always been take take take with them,” the farmer said. “You give an inch and they take a yard.”
“But the Changelings have never been anything but peaceful with us,” I said. “I mean, they never broke our treaties before.”
The farmer’s wife snorted.
“They’ve broken every treaty we’ve ever made with them,” the farmer’s wife said. “Every chance they got to take advantage, they took. Meanwhile, we let them do it. They stole from us, they attacked us, they even took us as slaves.”
That wasn’t right. I received daily reports from my advisors. Not once had there been any suggestion of a Changeling attack.
Were they ill-informed? If they were, how did I explain the Changelings’ sudden attack?
How could I have missed everything they’d done to us?
They wouldn’t have attacked us suddenly and out of nowhere. We were a powerful adversary to them. They would have attacked us many times over the years.
That was why they were willing to take the risk. They knew we weren’t ready to defend ourselves.
My stomach sank at the obviousness of the truth.
My advisers.
My chief adviser.
Slak.
He chose what information passed to me.
He was the one that informed me of what was happening in the empire.
My empire.
When I created his position, I gave him too much power over me.
I had been a blind fool.
I had trusted him because I saw him as an easy way to rule the empire, a way to rule without having to do any of the work.
I put down my spoon, unable to eat another bite.
“You must be tired,” the farmer’s wife said. “We don’t have any extra beds in the house but you’re welcome to take the loft in the barn. It’s warm and the straw makes good bedding. I can give you blankets and pillows.”
“That would be great, thank you,” Hazel said.
She looked between me and the farmers. They expected me to say something but I was too busy dwelling on my idiocy.
“And could we use your shower?” Hazel said. “We haven’t washed all day.”
“We don’t have any hot water left,” the farmer said. “But you can wash with cold water.”
The farmers formed fists and brought them toward their chests. I performed the same motion back to them, but with a huge sense of guilt pressing down on me.
These people had relied on their emperor to protect them.
And I had betrayed them, heart and soul.
How could I have been so stupid?
Letting Slak decide what news I would receive? What I would base my decisions on?
But it was worse than that.
I made no decisions.
He made them.
Then he gave me the documents I needed to sign, documents that would make me do what he wanted me to do.
This whole time, I might have been the emperor, but I had not been the leader.
Slak had been in charge.
Had he worked alone? Or had he recruited the help of the other advisers?
Were they innocent?
No. They couldn’t be.
On the rare occasions I asked questions, the advisers stepped forward and provided the information I needed. They told me whatever they had to to ensure I signed their damn documents.
They had already agreed on what I ought to know and what I shouldn’t.
They were the corrupt officials I was supposed to protect the empire from.
I was a fool.
I hadn’t noticed the water was ice cold when I washed in it. It did nothing to sharpen my senses. I felt even more tired afterward.
My mind was still buzzing with those thoughts of my traitors.
The empire’s traitors.
But ultimately, I had to accept responsibility. For the countless who had died, the honest, the innocent. All of them had died because of my negligence and stupidity.
The Creator forgive me. Let me make it up to my people. Please.
The farmer’s wife led us up the ladder and into the barn’s loft. She left the oil lamp on. It revealed
