Chapter 52

The fires raged throughout the night. Like the demonic nightmares of ancient lore, it devoured everything in its path. It respected not the rich nor the poor. All were made equal in its consuming fury. Men rich and poor choked on the same smoke. The flesh of those unable to escape the raging flames crackled all the same.

And while the heart of the fire was destroyed that first day, due to the tireless work of Aris Ravenscroft’s city guards and those citizens driven to desperate action in order to save their lives and livelihoods, smaller fires spawned from falling embers, raged on throughout the next few days before they were finally, fully, extinguished.

By the time the majority of the blazes were extinguished, Fiell had transformed. The riverfront, which had once been a vibrant community, full of colorful houses inspired by the coastal designs, mixed with the earthy mountain tones of the older buildings, were now painted in a uniform ashy blackness.

The air choked with lung burning smoke. They skies were dyed a nebulous brownish-red. Thousands had been displaced by the fires that had destroyed so much of Vealand’s capital city of Fiell.

Tent makers worked until their hands bled as they built housing for those thousand displaced. Tensions heated when, under an Imperial command from Emperor Evrain, those self-same tentmakers were barred from making profit off of their work during the tragedy.

Those who’d lost everything in the fires thought that the forced compassion was the only decent thing for the greedy merchants to do, but those providing the services, at their own expense and at the end of their forced labor, grew bitter quickly.

The Imperial edict had made them little more than slaves.

The raw hands, hearts, and lungs were a toxic mixture, and it seemed like with each passing day, more violence broke out.

The day the news broke that the fires hadn’t been accidental. That they had been the act of a concentrated group of arsons, was the day that hell broke loose.

Those who’d become refugees in their own city had lived in unrest for the next two weeks after the fire. They had lost everything. Their merchants fought to profit off of their misery, and now, they learned that the destruction of everything that they had known and loved, had been intentional.

Almost immediately the theories started pouring in about who had started the fires and violence between the various people groups infected the populace like a narcotic addiction.

Hate was easier in a tragedy than love. Blame was easier than reconciliation. Violence easier than peace.

Who had started the fires? No one seemed to know, but did it matter?

No it didn’t.

Not really. What mattered was what had been lost. What had been taken from them.

That couldn’t be replaced, and those who’d stolen from them needed retribution. They would make the monsters who had taken so much from them, and had killed so many pay.

Aris’ men, stretched thin from fighting the fires and ordering the evacuations, organizing the refugee camps for their own citizens, and dealing with the constant violence and looting, were beginning to wear down to the breaking point.

Aris, who’s eye’s, he was beginning think would never rid themselves of the dark circles that’d formed that first night of the fire, had erupted in a volcanic fury when he had heard news of one of his city guards breaking the arm of a woman whom he thought was looting.

A small, but destructive riot had broken loose after that. The small crowd that had witnessed the action had rushed the officer, quickly overwhelming him with blows, but the guard’s detachment, fearing for the safety of their comrade, had waded into the fray, using their skill with Falis to deadly effect. By the time the small skirmish had finished, the first officer, who had attacked the woman, had suffered a broken jaw, nose, leg, and sever gashes.

The physicians, already overwhelmed with treating the injured and sick from the fire, weren’t sure that he was going to survive his injuries. And, worse for Aris, the city guards had accidentally killed two of the rioters during the fray.

How could one trust a police force that killed the most helpless during their greatest time of need? Aris knew that no matter how justified their actions may have been, the mob would only see the use of lethal force and call for retaliation against those they once called their protectors. Once confidence in their protection was lost, the mob would self regulate and vigilantism would become the norm, and certainly enough, more violence broke out across the city.

Soon skirmishes between the city guards and mobs armed with sticks, clubs, and knives broke out across the city.

Violence became the norm.

*****

“You’re doing such a great job,” Edrian Wolls, the hawk-faced Minister of Defense, jabbed Aris with a saccharine tone.

Aris didn’t bother to turn his head. He knew that if he looked the Minister in the eyes he wouldn’t be able to trust himself to keep from caving the self-absorbed man’s face in.

Their city had experienced a cataclysm unlike it’d ever seen before, hundreds had died in the fires, and thousands more had been displaced, and here was the Minister of Defense —the man who was supposed to be in charge of protecting their nation as a whole— seeming to find mocking Aris a much more effective use of his time than actually addressing the tragedy that was effecting his country.

Aris had never hated the man more than he did now. He’d long held the man as an enemy, as someone to never be trusted, ambitious and backstabbing…But he’d assumed that Edrian Wolls loved his country, that he wanted to truly protect those whom he had been placed over.

Apparently he didn’t. Could he be working with Emperor Evrain? Could he have been helping the corrupt pretender?

Was he behind the fires too?

What part did Edrian play? He knew that ultimately Emperor Evrain had been behind the fires, but was the Minister of Defense complicit?

Had he known that the Inquisitors, Emperor Evrain’s secret police force had been responsible for igniting the blazes that had eaten the core of Fiell and destroyed its thriving waterfront? Just how much did the Minister of Defense know about what was going on? Aris needed to find out. He needed to find out soon.

Something bit at him. An urgency that told him things were only going to get worse.

Aris needed to find out what was happening before Fiell descended into the fiery wasteland that Portin and Brinhold had been brought down to before the survivors had fled the coast and had made Fiell into the thriving capital it’d just been until the recent fires.

Wallace had shared the memories of the fall of the coast with Aris who’d been too young to remember anything at the time. Aris recalled the terror that haunted even the most mundane of activities. Who could have been a Memory Mage? Did you feel a strange tingle at the touch of another?

Wallace had seen people mobbed and beaten to death, skulls crushed, for little more than an errant accidental brush. Wallace’s own mother had fallen in the hysteria. She had been weighted with heavy rocks and thrown from a cliff into the unforgiving ocean swells below.

Aris couldn’t let Fiell turn into the hell-scape that the coast had been before its destruction. He refused to allow himself to even think of the possibility of Fiell falling into the darkness that had swallowed Portin and Brinhold alive. He would never allow that to happen.

He would die before allowing that madness to consume Vealand again.

“So, how exactly are you planning on dealing with these little uprisings?” Edrian Wolls asked snidely, drawing Aris’ attention back to the Imperial cabinet meeting. “You know, you can always hand over defense of the city to me,” he said.

Aris grimaced at the suggestion and his hairs raised at the nods of agreement that resounded throughout the room. Having the military in the city would inevitably lead to more chaos. They weren’t trained to deal with nor protect the people domestically. The military was trained to destroy. To quell uprisings. To kill those who stood against them.

To bring them into this already volatile situation would only cause more chaos.

Blood would flow.

He had to stop them. Edrian couldn’t have his way here. If he did, there was no counting the number of lives that could be lost.

“I like that idea.”

Those words rang like a death knell in the cabinet office. Had Emperor Evrain just agreed with Edrian Wolls?

Any shred of doubt that Aris Ravenscroft had once held about the Emperor’s evil intentions were obliterated in that moment. Evrian, under the pretense of keeping the peace, meant to tear what was left of Vealand and their capital city of Fiell apart.

“Are you serious?!” Aris launched from his chair. “How can you possibly think that bringing the military into the city is a good idea?!”

The heads in the conference room whipped towards Aris. Eyebrows raised and arms folded. The General had just insulted the the majority of the cabinet.

Emperor Evrain, golden hair greying at the temples, with harsh lines under his eyes, cocked his head. “Pray tell?”

“The military isn’t trained to handle domestic situations,” Aris said, knowing, but not caring that his tone had taken that of a teacher dealing with exasperating students. “They’re trained to quell uprisings. To fight battles. They train to fight an outside enemy. What do you think will happen when you put them in the city? They aren’t going to quell the violence. They’re going to incite rebellion. They’re going to force the people to submit or crush them. They’re going to make a hostile nation of our populace. To invite them in would invite a civil war, and we can’t have that. Not now. Not when our people need us the most!” by the time the General had finished his impassioned plea, his voice had rose to a shout.

The other cabinet members looked from Aris to the Emperor. Trying to mine their faces for clues. Would Evrain take Aris Ravenscroft’s criticism? If so, would it be right to align themselves with the General who’s star, even now, seemed to be on the rise, despite the chaos the fires had caused or would Emperor Evrain chastise the man? Would he punish Aris for his insolent tone and have him sent to some backwater posting for daring to speak to the man who had saved his nation in such a disrespectful manner?

Evrain nodded his head. “That truly is valuable insight. But I think your case is too weak General Ravenscroft. You yourself were in the military before you ascended to your rank of General of the City Guards, were you not?” he asked.

The moment those words left the Emperor’s mouth, Aris knew he’d lost the room. The Emperor had turned the tide that Aris had banked his reputation on with a simple question. The most brilliant part was how deftly Evrain had used Aris’ reputation against him. He had turned his stellar record into a weapon against him. It truly was a masterful move.

The whole tone of the conversation had shifted.

Aris, who had come to except that the man he’d served for so many years was not who he portrayed himself to be, realized in that moment, just how dangerous the Emperor was. He, with one question, had all but invited the military to take charge of the policing of his capital city of Fiell.

He had seemingly innocently began the destruction of the city, and he’d done so in a manner that would clear him of any wrongdoing from the violence that was assured to soon happen. Everyone would blame Edrian Wolls for any of the mistakes of the soldiers. Evrain had not only just handed the city of Fiell to the Minister of Defense on a silver platter, but the unwitting man’s head on the very same platter.

Dren, the late leader of the rebellion, who’s memories Aris had received when the man was dying, had been right. Evrain was a monster, and he would destroy Fiell just like he’d done with Portin and Brinhold.

He would bring down what was left of Vealand.

Aris need to stop him. If he wanted to save his city, he would have to take a stand against his Emperor and fight.

But what was he fighting against? He needed to know.