“It was,” Mauvin replied. “Then the damndest thing happened. The flag of truce went up from the vanguard of the Northern Imperial Army. A rider advanced and asked permission to speak at the gates. He explained that new orders had arrived along with a personal message to King Alric. If that wasn’t strange enough, the personal guard of Empress Modina had delivered them.”
He nodded toward a palace guard who was providing water to Amilia. “His name is Gerald. Anyway, the message said that Regents Ethelred and Saldur were traitors, and they were keeping the empress a prisoner in her own palace. It also said the war against Melengar was their personal quest for power, and that their commander, Sir Breckton, was either dead by treachery or falsely imprisoned and awaiting execution.”
Hadrian started to speak, but Mauvin stopped him. “Wait… wait… it gets better. The orders commanded the acting leader of the Northern Army to cease all aggression against Melengar, extend the empress’s sincerest apologies to King Alric, and return to Aquesta with all haste. The messenger went on to explain that Arista was scheduled for execution on Wintertide, and Empress Modina requested Alric to send whatever assistance he could spare.”
“What did Alric say?” Hadrian asked Mauvin, as the king was consumed with aiding his sister.
“Are you kidding? He figured it was a ploy. Some trick to get us to come out. We all thought so. Then Alric yells down, more as a joke than anything, ‘To prove you are telling the truth, lay down your weapons!’ We laughed real hard until the commander, a guy named Sir Tibin—who’s a decent enough fellow once you get to know him—did just that. We all stood on the parapet watching in disbelief as the Imperialists made this huge pile of spears, swords, and shields.
“That convinced Alric. He told them that not only would he send help, but he would personally lead the detachment. We rode day and night and expected to have a rough time breaching the city walls, but when we arrived, the gates were open. The people were rioting in the empress’s name and shouting for Ethelred’s and Saldur’s heads. We stormed the palace and found only token resistance—just some foot soldiers and a few seret.”
“Your sword has blood on it,” Hadrian noted, pointing to Mauvin’s blade.
“Yeah, funny that. I was determined never to draw it again, but when the fighting started, it just kind of came out by itself.”
“What about Modina?” Amilia asked. “Is she… is she…”
Gerald’s face was grave.
“What?” Amilia begged.
“There was an unfortunate incident in her bedroom this morning,” the guard said.
Tears rose in Amilia’s eyes. “Did she…”
“She killed Regent Ethelred.”
“She what?”
“She stabbed him with a piece of broken glass from her mirror. She escaped an attempt on her life and ran to the courtyard. She rallied the soldiers who were loyal to her. When we arrived, she was ordering her men about like a seasoned general. Her troops managed to open the palace gates for us. Along with the Melengarians and the Northern Army, we suppressed the remaining seret and the palace guards loyal to the regents.”
“Where is she now?” Amilia asked.
“She’s on her throne, accepting vows of allegiance from the monarchs, nobles, and knights—everyone that had come for the wedding.”
Men with stretchers appeared in the hall. Amilia turned to Sir Breckton. With tears in her eyes, she let out an awkward laugh and said, “You were right. She did save us.”
CHAPTER 19
NEW BEGINNINGS
Modina stood alone on the little hill just beyond the city. This was the first time she had been outside the palace gates in more than a year. Four men with pickaxes had worked the better part of three days, cutting through the frozen ground to make a hole deep enough for the grave. What had taken days to dig was filled in just minutes, leaving a dark mound on a field of white.
Her reunion with the world was bittersweet, because her first act was to bury a friend. The gravediggers tried to explain it was customary to wait until spring, but Modina insisted. She had to see him put to rest.
Seventeen soldiers waited at the base of the hill. Some trotted a perimeter on horseback, while others kept a watchful eye on her or the surrounding area. As she stood quietly in that bleak landscape, her robe shimmered and flapped in the wind like gossamer.
“You did this to me,” she accused the dirt mound before her.
Modina had not seen him since Dahlgren. She knew of him the way she knew about everything.
Saldur enjoyed the sound of his own voice, which made him an excellent tutor. The regent even talked to himself when no one else was around. When he did not know something, he always summoned experts to the sanctity of his office, the one place he felt safe from prying ears. Most of the names and places had been meaningless at first, but with repetition, everything became clear. Modina learned of Androus Billet from Rhenydd, who had murdered King Urith, Queen Amiter, and their children. Androus succeeded where Percy Braga had failed when trying to seize control of Melengar. She learned how Monsignor Merton, though loyal to the church, was becoming a liability because he was a true believer. She heard that the regents could not decide if King Roswort of Dunmore’s biggest asset was his cowardice or his greed. She learned the names of Cornelius and Cosmos DeLur, men the regents saw as genuine threats unless properly controlled. Their influence on trade was crucial to maintaining imperial stability.
In the beginning Modina heard without listening as the words just flowed past. Over time, their constant presence filtered through the fog, settling like silt upon her mind. The day his name floated by was the first time she actually paid attention to what was being said.
The regents were toasting him for their success. Initially, Modina thought he was in Saldur’s study, sharing a glass of spirits with them, but eventually it became apparent they were mocking him. His efforts were instrumental to their rise, but he would not share in the rewards. They spoke of him as a mad lunatic who had served his purpose. Instead of executing him, he had been locked in the secret prison—that oubliette for refuse they wanted to forget.
He died alone in the darkness. The doctors said it was due to starvation, but Modina knew better. She was intimately familiar with the demons that visited prisoners trapped in that darkness: regret, hopelessness, and most of all, fear. She knew how the fiends worked—entering in silence, filling a void, and growing until the soul was pushed out, until nothing remained. Like an old tree, the trunk could continue to stand while the core rotted away, but when all strength was gone, the first breeze would snap the spirit.