Vhalla was frozen in time. Those people, it had seemed so justified, so logical at the time. She realized she was the one who had invaded their home. She rode with the people who were destroying their way of life. Now she came to help deliver the final blow. Shaldan had not been a war-torn state until the Empire had made it that way.
“Vhalla, you are not a monster,” Aldrik said firmly. His voice was louder and she felt a strange warmth wash over her cheeks. “What do you see?”
She knew he was away from his papers by the proximity of his voice, by his hands on her face. He asked for her sake, not for him or the war.
They’re huddled in mass. There are so many people, but most don’t look like they are warriors. She began to walk through the tent camp. There are children, Aldrik.
“Inside the walls?” he asked.
Yes, with their families, or perhaps not. I don’t know ... They’re so thin. Vhalla saw the way the clothes hung off some of them.
“The siege has gone on for more than eight months now,” he explained. “But we pressed upon them more than a year ago. Their stocks must be low. Can you find out where they keep their food stores?”
There are children! Vhalla exclaimed, horrified. She watched two boys play, somehow oblivious to the adults around them whose eyes were empty from staring so long at bodies that would too soon be corpses.
“That doesn’t matter.”
Vhalla knew he was forcing himself to be stoic and strong, to be the prince that had to make a decision when there were no right answers. She heard the emotion under his words, the pain at having to say them. But she suddenly felt so angry at the fact that he could say them at all.
It does matter! I won’t murder children, she exclaimed. “You don’t have a choice.”
Vhalla tried to regain her composure. She fought and struggled with the scene before her, to justify it with the reasons the Empire had fed her all her life. The Empire fought for peace, but all Vhalla saw were desperate civilians clinging to weapons they’d never been trained to use. The Empire fought for prosperity—and children starved. The Empire fought for justice—and broke the laws it touted in the process.
Murderers, they were murderers under the command of the greatest murderer of them all.
I can’t, I can’t do this, Aldrik. Vhalla didn’t pull into her body once more; she didn’t go forward, she didn’t do anything.
“You can,” Aldrik encouraged.
We’re taking their home from them!
“Their home is lost,” the prince said grimly. “What do you think will happen if you refuse? Do you think you can stop the inevitable? This was set into motion long before we met, long before you had Awoken to your powers. The North was going to fall from the start. They dragged this out with their resistance.” Of course they did! It’s their home. Vhalla had never imagined she could find any understanding for the people she’d been brought here to kill. But in that moment, she wondered if she would fight with the Northerners if given the choice.
“Their Chieftain did this. She put her people here. And now she’ll see them starve before she forfeits her city.”
Did they have a choice?
“All leaders have the choice to take responsibility for their people,” Aldrik affirmed. “The North is a beast that’s wounded and bleeding. They’ll die with or without you. If they die faster, they’ll suffer less. You can give them that, my love.”
That’s horrible.
“It’s the truth,” Aldrik insisted defensively. But he did not deny that it was horrible.
She knew it was the case, but to hear it from his lips was harder than Vhalla could imagine. This was worse than anything she’d ever been put through, but he didn’t understand. Vhalla had envisioned she would be fighting on a battlefield. In every mental preparation for the battles to come, Vhalla had imagined herself squaring off against a faceless enemy. Something shapeless and corporal, she envisioned herself battling against the North as an entity, not as lay people.
This was an enemy who couldn’t stand. It was an enemy that was bent over and begging. Pleading for the last scraps of happiness they could stitch together with the remnants of their lives. She wasn’t here to be the Empire’s soldier or champion. She was here to be the greatest executioner the Empire Solaris had ever deployed.
It wasn’t war any longer: it was an impending massacre.
“The food stores,” Aldrik reminded, the magical warmth of his palms tingling across her Projected cheeks.
She had to move. He was right. This would end with or without her and she could ease the suffering by hastening it. Vhalla wanted to sob and scream with each step forward. The people were oblivious to the enemy in their midst. Vhalla steeled her heart. She’d learned to do it as Serien and the shadow of the other woman protectively hovered over her.