“Well, if there is nothing else.” Aldrik cast a wary eye toward Elecia. “We leave at sundown.”
They followed their Emperor’s decrees, every last one of them. They tacked the horses and filled their bellies with the last hot meal they were likely to get for the foreseeable future. The Charem family swore their secret loyalty even as Aldrik ordered them to bend knee in body—but not in heart—to Victor. After the moon had begun its journey into the sky, they rode out swathed in the darkest cloaks the Charems owned.
The Emperor Solaris led his loyal few into the uncertain darkness.
CHAPTER 2
They had underestimated Victor, specifically the speed at which his abominations could be created and moved. Those forced to follow his will were going to be subjected to death by ten thousand papercuts from witnessing those they loved being turned into horrors. And this would be before Victor began mobilizing an actual structured army to take the continent. That is if any survived to object to Victor’s rule.
As the Emperor and his loyalists arrived at the first tiny town beyond Fritz’s home, they discovered it painted red with blood.
Half frozen bodies, glistening crimson, littered the ground in the mid-morning sun. Men, women, children—the young and old—were reduced to shades of former life. Vhalla stared on tiredly. It shouldn’t hurt any longer, but pain sat rooted in her chest. She had seen this before. She had lived this blood-stained life recently, now more real than when she had filed books away in the Imperial Library.
Vhalla unfurled the vise-like grip she held on her reins and raised a hand to her shoulder, soaked through to skin from the heavily falling snow. Her fingers massaged the angry scar tissue. It ached and stung all the way down her arm. The physical pain was a mask for the visceral guilt that tore its way through her.
This was her fault.
“He didn’t spare anyone, did he?” Elecia whispered. Whatever had caused the carnage was long gone, but she still kept her voice low, in homage to the dead surrounding them.
“Why didn’t they kneel?” Aldrik’s brows knotted together, deep lines appearing between them. He asked the question they all were thinking.
“They never would’ve.” Fritz swayed in the breeze, nearly falling out of his saddle. Vhalla wondered if he’d known people in this town like she’d known people in the neighboring town to Leoul. “For centuries, the eldest in every family went to serve in the Imperial guard, back to when the South was just Lyndum.” The Southerner shook his head. “They’d never accept someone who wasn’t a Solaris on the throne.”
Aldrik’s mouth pressed together into a scowl. Vhalla struggled to find something to relieve his pain, but there was nothing she could say when her guilt was just as heavy.
“We’ll rest here until sunset,” Aldrik decided, pointing to a small tavern.
The seven housed their mounts in the attached stables, alongside a tired-looking pony and a spooked mare. It was expectedly empty inside, void of both corpses and survivors.
“Well, they still have ale,” Jax revealed from his inspection from behind the bar.
“Leave it,” Aldrik ordered.
“Just because you—”
Aldrik silenced Jax with a pointed look that he quickly abandoned when he pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “I will have no drunken stupors on this journey.”
“One drink does not a stupor make.” Jax crossed his arms over his chest; it hid the slight tremble Vhalla had noticed in his hands when he had run them along the bar.
Aldrik sighed heavily. “Do what you will. We move again at sundown. You should enjoy the beds while we have them.”
Taking his own advice, Aldrik dragged his feet up the small stairs that presumably led to the inn’s rooms. Concern lined Jax’s forehead as his eyes followed the Emperor’s departure. Vhalla caught his look and gave a nod in affirmation, following on Aldrik’s heels.
His cloak was already hanging to dry when she poked her nose in the crack of the doorway. Aldrik turned quickly at the sound, nearly crumpling from exhaustion when he saw it was only her. Vhalla eased the door shut behind her and rested her back against it.
“These people served my family for centuries.” Aldrik started a small fire with a look, and Vhalla was relieved to see that, despite his mood, it did not flare out of control. “A whole town of them, sons and daughters, loyal to the Solaris name until their end. And I-I was never made aware.”
“We will honor them.”
“How? With what?” Aldrik’s voice had bite, but his expression was tired and his eyes searching.
“Until this is over, we will have to carry their memory with us. But when we have fixed all this, we can do more,” she vowed, as much to him as to herself.