“Now how could you possibly come across that tidbit?”
I believe I just saw the woman who tried to shoot me down, Vhalla thought darkly.
“Remember her face so that I may have the pleasure of killing her myself.” Protectiveness gave an edge to Aldrik’s voice that would sound bitter to anyone else. But, to her ears, it resonated warmly.
I’m going to go through the second wall. It seems older, made of a different sort of stone than the outer one. It feels like solid magic. Vhalla stood at the oppressive wall. The shifting currents of magic Vhalla saw all seemed to be stilled by the stone.
“We will need our best Groundbreakers then.” She could hear the scratching of Aldrik’s quill again.
Vhalla paused their conversation to pass through the wall. It completely muddled her magical senses and, for a panicked moment, Vhalla thought she’d somehow fallen into her Channel again. She pushed forward, desperate for air. The ground would smother her magical form alive if she let it.
On the other side, Vhalla thought she could breathe again—metaphorically speaking at least—until she saw the scene before her. By the Mother ...
“What is it, Vhalla?” Aldrik asked worriedly.
Aldrik ... Vhalla tried to process what she saw.
The palace was a magnificent display of architecture, like the grandest tree house a child could ever dream. Stone and wooden buildings were connected by arched walkways suspended at every level. It was as if someone had hollowed out the palace in the south and exposed its innards on the outside, a spider’s web of narrow footways and tunnels. The trees were so old and tall that some had been fossilized, or magically turned to stone, others had been carved into and hollowed out to make living spaces.
The castle grew denser as it moved upward and inward. The highest center point had a long, single catwalk extending from it, an access point that had only walkways leading into it. Connected to the access point were other rooms and buildings. Vhalla had no doubt that the Chieftains made their bed in the highest point.
But it was not the architecture that gave her pause. Nor was it the seemingly impossible construction. What made Vhalla stop in her tracks were the people.
“Vhalla, what is it?” Aldrik repeated into the silence.
Vhalla continued to ignore him as the scene settled on her. Northern men and women of every shape and size had built hovels within the inner wall, a tent city that mirrored the surrounding Imperial army’s. The palace seemed to be housing more than just the people who had lived and worked there previously. A great number of refugees had set up camp, fleeing from the encroaching Southern army. There were too many people, even for such a massive space, so everyone seemed to be on top of someone else.
Their quiet and somber faces imprinted themselves on her memories. Life continued. People went about their daily tasks. Children played, women tended to livestock, men cooked and mended things that needed mending. But all the shoulders sagged with the heavy weight of truth.
It hit her at once. It was an earth-shattering and humbling revelation. It made the anger and bloodlust vanish in the wake of shame. It made every night she’d spent wishing the Northerners dead for Sareem, for Larel, seem less meaningful.
These people were not mindless killers.
They were not a faceless enemy that was half wild and half mad. They were not less than human. They were not different from her just because they came from somewhere else, spoke differently, dressed differently, or looked different.
They were just like her. They were people who had lost their homes, their possessions, and likely their families as they fled to the last safe place they had, the last sacred place that was still their home before the Southern Empire swallowed it up and took their names and history and consumed them, turning them into “the North”.
Everything Vhalla had heard and learned about the war had been from the mouths of the Empire. It was the collective tongue that wagged on behalf of the Emperor. It had been watered down through excuses and explanations to seem logical. But there was nothing logical about this. This was not for faith, or peace, these people died for greed.
“Vhalla, say something,” Aldrik demanded.
She had thought she knew what war was, but as their empty eyes and too-thin bodies etched themselves onto her soul, Vhalla realized she knew nothing at all. They were all boys and girls playing at war, writing their own songs the bards would sing. But the bards never sang about this.
Suddenly the faces of the people she had killed came back to her.
We are monsters.