RE: Monarch

“Don’t touch nothing” lasted as long as it took for Jion to open the doors to find the cell pit empty.

He’s gone.

I stood at the edge of the fetid cavity, my nerves grinding as Jion and Alten scoured the ten-foot hollow they were using to keep the shaman in isolation. Sera stared down, visibly disquieted. “We just have… holes to keep people in?”

“Looks that way,” I said, inspecting the door frame for anything out of the ordinary. The door itself was locked from the outside, with little in the way of ingress in or out. The pit was deep with slick, refuse-covered walls. But there was still a chance of a trail.

“But… why?” Sera said. She was pulled into herself, disturbed by both the revelation that the shaman was gone and the conditions he was kept in.

I thought of the infernals’ black rooms. “It’s a form of coercion. Less… sticky… than the usual dungeon fare, but I’m guessing the king didn’t want to take the risk of our guest having a heart attack. Shove them somewhere isolated, preferably where they can’t hear or see anything beyond their own immediate surroundings. With the lack of stimulus, they start to see and hear things that aren’t there.”

“It’s sounding like your time away wasn’t all fun and games,” Sera said, peering at me curiously.

“Good guess.” I looked down at Alten and Jion. “Any scratches or small footprints? Could be small. Even rodent sized.”

“No signs of an animal, if that’s what you’re asking,” Alten called up to me, crouching over a clearly defined imprint in the mud, tracing the outer line with a finger. “Looks like he spent most of his time here leaned up against this wall. Trail of footsteps coming to and from this spot. Nothing on the walls to imply he climbed out, or even tried to. He just paced. Back and forth, and back again.”

I closed the door and went down on my hands, looking for a gap. It was flush with the ground, the door itself thick oak. There was no flex when I leaned against it. Stumped, I stepped back and turned to my sister. “The drephin can change forms. I’ve only seen them turn into wolves, so I don’t know for certain, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility that he ditched his manacles somehow and changed into something small enough to escape.”

“What about an insect?” Alten called up from the pit.

I considered that, eyeing the bottom of the door. While it was flush to the ground, the wood at the bottom was rough, with several grooves no larger than a sliver. “If he changed into something that small, yes. That could do it. But where are the manacles? He couldn’t have taken them with him.”

“Even if he’d slipped them, we would have known about it.” Jion shook his head. “As soon as the connection is broken, the bindings make a racket. Ear piercing. No one in the dungeons would have missed it.”

Which meant he left with the manacles intact.

“Something smells… septic.” Sera wrinkled her nose.

“Well, I doubt they were bathing him. For that matter, do you see a bucket down here, princess?” Alten stood from his crouch, wiping at his brow with a forearm.

“Shut up, dog.” Sera’s mouth tightened as she flipped Alten a crude gesture. But I considered her statement. Sera was half-elf. Along with a higher than human capability for magic, elevated senses came with the territory. And her wording was very specific. Not “awful.” Not even “like shit.”

Septic.

“Septic how?” I asked her.

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be condescending.”

“I’m serious. My sense of smell has been more or less ruined ever since I waded through a wyvern cove in the sanctum.” I gestured toward Alten and Jion. “And both of them are knee deep in the actual shit, so it’s probably overpowering everything else. If there’s anything off about the scent, you’re probably the only one present capable of picking out the difference.”

Finally seeming to accept that I wasn’t patronizing her, Sera closed her eyes and her nostrils flared as she took a long breath. Again, she wrinkled her nose. “Gods. It’s—it’s like the difference between Whitefall and Topside. More aged. Spoiled food, almost.”

“What sort of food?” I pressed, focusing on nothing but her, the wheels of my mind already turning.

Sera opened her eyes with a grimace. “A little like rotten eggs. It’s familiar, but I can’t place it.”

My thoughts picked up speed. “Similar to when the wind kicks up from the south in the summer months?”

My sister’s mouth dropped open. “Exactly. Cairn, it smells like—”

The sewers.

But before she could finish, there was a ruckus from outside. The heavy march of soldiers in plate carried down the hall. Their steps were uniform, orderly. The King’s Honor Guard.

My father had arrived, my priority to suspect him growing more urgent with every marching boot.

“Listen to me,” I said, taking her by the shoulders, checking over my shoulder to make sure Jion wasn’t listening too closely. “I’ve been here before. Many times. You discover a key piece of information and it’s tempting to shout it from the rooftops. But there’s too much we still don’t know.”

Sera’s excitement faded in an instant, her enthusiasm replaced with suspicion. “Conveniently positioning you to take credit later.”

Dammit, Sera.

In desperation, my thoughts trended in several directions I wasn’t proud of. Revealing my knowledge of her heritage was almost guaranteed to silence her, but she’d hate me for it. There were a few other less nasty, but equally manipulative methods I could try.

With seconds to spare, I chose neither. “If you’re right, what happens after you tell him?”

Sera’s lip curled. “He sees that his precious heir is not the only offspring capable of upholding his legacy.”

I shook my head. “Think further. At most, you get a flicker of recognition. An acknowledgement that will last as long as it takes for the king to spin the crucial piece of information you uncovered into a victory for himself.”

“What are you offering?” Sera asked, with an undercurrent of derision.

“A way to prove yourself as more than just a good nose.”

“Which is?” Sera asked.

I thought furiously until it came to me. The perfect carrot. My squandered opportunity to take control of a section of my father’s army in my previous life had been a constant source of friction between me and Sera. She’d constantly given me shit for it, banging that particular drum for far too long to be simple pettiness. In retrospect, her bitterness on the topic made sense. I wasn’t a fighter then, not even close, while she was an iron-trained battle-mage who would, at most, be given a small auxiliary unit. It was a slight by any reasonable measure. Which made the carrot I was imagining something she would not only want, but would bend over backward for.

I was still leaning dangerously on an unconfirmed theory, drawn almost entirely from the stench of rotten eggs. But it was all I had.

“The sewers are massive,” I said, laying the trap almost nonchalantly. “It would take us months to scour them on our own. I’ll need to mobilize my regiment.”

“And you’ll what?” Sera leaned in, her mouth pulled downward in anger. “Let me fight with them? Your half-breeds and castaways and—”

“I’ll give you command of your own banner, within my regiment,” I said bluntly, trying to outpace the bootsteps drawing closer. “A banner emblazoned with a gilded lioness.”

Sera’s eyes widened. “How—”

She cut off as King Valen’s honor guard arrived, mouth snapping shut as we both stepped away.

I was fairly certain Sera was about to ask how I could possibly know about the design. Again, I was cheating. In my previous life, a few months after my chance to select and train my own regiment had faded, and I’d grown tired of the targeted harassment from Sera, I broke into her rooms and snooped through her things, looking for anything I could use against her. I’d found what I was looking for in a locked compartment of her desk. A sketched image of a golden lioness mid-pounce amidst the clear outline of a regimental banner. As banners went, it was a good pick. But the poor sketching implied that she’d done it herself, and that she’d hidden it gave the impression she was ashamed of the fantasy.

My retribution—one I’d ignorantly considered justified at the time—was cruel. I’d mocked her for weeks, posted facsimiles of the image everywhere I could find, and dubbed her the Kitten of Whitefall. A dull, witless pseudonym that spread like wildfire, until King Gil himself took to saying it.

Gods, no wonder she’d hated me.

There was nothing ambiguous about what I was offering now. Had it simply been a position in my regiment, she would have shot it down without question. But I was offering her the role of a banner lieutenant. Among the Silodan armies, the smallest unit of a regiment were lances, each led by an officer, comprising five to ten men. Approximately ten lances made up a banner.

The role of banner lieutenant was a difficult one. While they still answered to oversight in the form of regimental leadership, to a commander—Cephur in this case—they often developed their own specializations and tactics individually, and acted with significant autonomy in battle.

A good banner lieutenant could easily change the tide of battle. A great one, typically a leader who could leverage their banner’s individual strengths to maximal effect and patient enough to wait for the perfect moment, could win it outright.

This staggered, streamlined method of leadership allowed for one of the rarest commodities in Silodan: true meritocracy. It wasn’t at all uncommon for a great banner lieutenant to be promoted to the rank of commander and assigned their own regiment. Lowborn or highborn, it didn’t matter. With her background and area of focus, there was no question in my mind that Sera knew all of this and understood the possibilities. The question was whether she’d cave to greed and secure the smaller, guaranteed victory, or if she had enough ambition to take a chance on the larger, more nebulous triumph.

King Valen stood at the front of his honor guard, giving us both a slow, trailing look. He simmered with rage, the softness from our prior conversation nowhere to be seen. “Boy… and girl. I’m told we have a problem.”

“Prisoner’s missing,” I said simply.

“I gave explicit orders on containment,” King Gil raged, spittle flying from his mouth as he railed into the torturer below, and the large man all but cowered. “He was to be kept in isolation and monitored.”

Jion stammered. “It wasn’t… we followed every directive to the letter, your majesty.”

My first instinct was to stay silent. Come up with an excuse for why I’d needed to speak to the shaman, avoid drawing King Gil’s attention to the matter for as long as possible. Doing so would hang Jion out to dry—which was tempting considering his trade. But unseating the head torturer because it satisfied me was small. It would do nothing to curb the practice in Whitefall. Someone less experienced would simply replace him. And regardless of his craft, proclivities, and nature, the man had helped me.

I tapped my father’s shoulder and shifted my head to the side. “A moment.”

He begrudgingly relented, following me outside the cell. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sera follow us unprompted, her expression still conflicted.

“I assume this isn’t a waste of my time?” King Gil growled, crossing his arms.

“Unlikely, though I’m still sifting through the details.” I leaned in, lowering my voice. “Has Thaddeus brought the demi-human disappearances to your attention?”

If he was lying, or knew more than he was going to say, this was my best chance at finding out. I looked for any trace of deceit, quick dismissal, or disproportionate display of anger—any indicator he might know more than he was letting on.

And found none.

Instead, the dismissal was gradual. Thoughtful. “He likely thought it unimportant. The gates are open. They can come and go as they please.”

So he wasn’t informed. Or at the very least, better than I thought at playing ignorant. “Whatever this is, it’s not that. Sera heard something from some of the castle staff about a significant number of infernals and elves disappearing, along with a smaller number of dwarves. I thought it was worth looking into and questioned a contact in Topside—”

“What? A week in the city and only a handful of outings, and you’re already developing informants?” King Gil raised an eyebrow.

Again, it was thinly veiled praise, and it threw me off.

“I’ve learned to work quickly,” I said, opting to take it in stride. “There’s truth to the rumor. Many of the demi-humans in question had families, established lives. Several vanished from high-density areas without a trace. Others from their homes, leaving their belongings untouched.”

My father pressed a palm to his forehead. “That is… less than ideal.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

He peered at me, then pointed a finger at my chest. “This is a matter for Thaddeus to handle. You do not have idle time to play spymaster.”

“Of course.” I held my arms out, accepting the criticism. “It was my intention to bring this to you as soon as I had definitive confirmation. My next order of business is attending my regiment.”

“Good. How did you make the leap to the dungeons?” King Gil asked suddenly, his brow lowering in suspicion.

I rubbed my neck awkwardly, as if he’d caught me omitting something I knew he wouldn’t like. “It was more or less unrelated. I’d intended to speak to the shaman before I learned of the order to place him in isolation—”

“Why?”

“Because the reason for their ambush is still frustratingly opaque, and they had an agenda far beyond ‘rob the passing humans.’ Much the same reason you requested less-invasive methods of inquisition, I suspect, to ensure he stayed alive long enough to talk.”

“And what, you fancied you were more likely to get answers than a trained inquisitor?” He mocked, pressing in on me.

It was almost a relief to see this side of him again. The combative, aggressive monarch who stopped at nothing until he had a satisfying answer. Ironically, I was far more capable of handling this than the bizarrely supportive father who gave me free rein.

I matched his movement, leaning forward until our heads were barely a span apart. “They were targeting both of us. And you know as well as I that hate can be a powerful motivator. What little they said sounded fanatic in nature. It was possible his righteous anger towards me might have inspired a slip. Something he would have held onto for far longer, otherwise.”

It would come any second now. The strike to my gut, or the backhand, or fistful of hair used to wrench me to my knees.

But I was wrong. Instead, he leaned back and nodded. “Continue.”

Wait. What? That’s it? Continue?

I cleared my throat. “There’s little else to it. Once the inquisitor informed me of the shaman’s situation, I grew worried from the reports of disappearing demi-humans, and asked for confirmation that he was still in his cell.”

His anger shifted away from me as he turned to Sera, who looked like a deer in the path of a runaway wagon. “And what, exactly, do you think you’re doing, getting in his way?”

I nearly spoke, but the king held up a blind hand to silence me.

Sera was caught flatfooted, judging from her stutter. If she intended to undercut me, this was the ideal moment. A single sentence was all it would take to significantly lower my standing.

“I-I-I-I came out of curiosity. Wanted to spend some time with my brother, after his time away,” Sera said.

I winced. To any other father, it would have been perfectly valid. But not ours.

King Gil advanced on her. “Tell me another lie and I’ll find an empty cell to lock you in. He is in the midst of doing great things—something you know nothing about. This period of his life will define his rule. If I discover this hovering is part of some childish plot to undermine him…”

Sera’s eyes welled with tears, and she retreated until her back pressed up against the stone wall.

My father continued undeterred. “…then you will be stripped of your title and cast aside. If I hear a single whisper that you’ve been a hindrance—”

“—She hasn’t,” I interjected. The smart thing would have been for me to hold my tongue, stay silent. Comfort Sera after, much as I had before. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

My father’s head whipped around. He stared at me in distaste. “By all means, explain to me how your sister has served as anything other than a distraction.”

I blended truth and deceit, answering quickly. “If Sera hadn’t brought word of the disappearances to me, we wouldn’t be standing here. Depending on how liberally the inquisitors interpreted your orders, it could have been days before we knew the shaman was missing. And while the infernals trained me well in technical spellcraft, I’ve had very little instruction in the rawer methods practiced among my own kind. Sera is exceptional in that regard, even amongst the elites of the Crimson Brand, and when she offered an exchange of knowledge, I accepted wholeheartedly.”

The king looked between the two of us, and I could almost see his mind shift gears as he acclimated to the idea. He glared at Sera dangerously. “Stay at his side then, since he seems to have accomplished the impossible task of finding a use for you. However. If there is an accident in your favor—”

“There won’t be.” Sera looked away.

“Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?” King Gil asked, leaning close enough that Sera began to sweat.

Sera’s eyes flicked to me, then back to him. “No, father. My intentions are to serve the kingdom. I swear it on my mother’s soul.”

Something unspoken passed between them.

Finally, King Gil relented. He turned from us without so much as a word and approached a member of his honor guard, hefting a polearm. “Weapon.”

The guard didn’t hesitate to take a knee and pass it to him. Gil snatched it from his grasp one-handed and stalked into the cell. Alten—who must have ascended from the pit and was listening at the doorway—slipped out behind him, looking back over his shoulder. “Not looking great for the Terragorian,” he muttered.

As I’d half-expected, the revelation that there was a greater plot didn’t stay the king’s wrath. It didn’t matter that there were outside forces at play, because that was something he expected to be accounted for.

King Gil recited the words with the emotion of a stone. “For your lapse in service to the Kingdom of Silodan in failing to contain a conspirator of regicide, your life is forfeit. The men under your direct command, all who bore the responsibility of containing the conspirator, will be questioned with the same methods you employed. Do you have anything to say that might ease their suffering?”

“It wasn’t me,” Jion said, the refusal half-hearted. For all his cruelty, he’d spent much of his life witnessing the darkest Silodan offered. He knew exactly how this would end.

“Do you have any last words or rites?”

Jion stared up at the king with the tired gaze of a man lost in the wilderness. “I—”

My father threw the spear, piercing Jion through the gut and pinning him to the filth covered ground. The man slid down the spear, face twisted into a rictus of pain.

King Gil exited the cell, a look of disgust on his face. “Wall him up. Let his screams be a reminder of the fate of those who fail the crown.”

Several of the dungeon staff wheeled out a cart of brick and began piling them in front of the door.

I watched, impassive, as they walled up the cell mechanically, the window separating us growing smaller by the second. The cold part of me whispered that he deserved it—not for failing the crown, but for the many, many lives he’d maimed, tormented, and destroyed.

But the truth was, no one deserved this.

I sent a tiny violet spark—almost too small to see—down the tail of my tabard and trousers, across the doorway and over the edge of the pit until it finally came to rest beside Jion. Once the bricks were laid and we were some distance away, I’d feed mana into it and the spark would flare into an impossibly hot fire, burning through the air in the room faster than the small gap they’d leave in the wall could replace it.

Suffocation wasn’t a pleasant end. But it was in an entirely different realm from slowly succumbing to a gut wound. And the alternative was the only solace I could offer him.

True change would come eventually, with sweeping reforms, governing laws. Until my father abdicated, I needed to do what I could, when I could.

King Gil and his honor guard lingered as the inquisitors were turned on each other.

We departed in low spirits. Sera had the worst of it, lingering so far behind we’d slowed to a snail’s pace.

Alten glanced back at her, then leaned in to whisper. “I understand omitting the sewers. But why not mention the theories?”

For him to know that, he must have eavesdropped on both my exchange with Sera before my father had arrived, and the tense argument between the three of us once he had. I squinted at him. “Your ears are remarkably good.”

“Don’t flatter.”

I looked forward, frowning. The truth was, I’d withheld as much as I feasibly could with the goal of staggering the information and bringing the king in later. I was now doubly glad of that, and had since rethought the original strategy, for multiple reasons.

“At first? Paranoia. But there’s two things that give me pause.”

“One being how quick he was to kill the guy who probably had the most information?” Alten asked quietly.

“That’s the first.” Tt wasn’t entirely out of character. Gil had killed men for less. Much less. But this seemed uncommonly impulsive even for him.

“And the second?” Alten asked.

I frowned. “If the sewer lead is correct, and it is a case of monsters dragging people into drains, there’s a huge hole. One that prompts another series of questions I have yet to parse. Best to restrict the flow of information until we understand it better.”

“What sort of hole?”

“You’re sure the cell was secure?” I double-checked.

When Alten confirmed it was, I shook my head. “Then we have a problem. Because the dungeon doesn’t have sewer access.” Gil was always emphatic about prioritizing the dungeon’s security over practically everything else. One way in and out with multiple checkpoints. No secondary exits, no large, convenient-to-escape-through pipes.

“Meaning whatever took him was probably human. Or at the very least appeared human.”

“And somehow walked straight out of the damn dungeon with the shaman in tow.”