I’ve found a reprieve from this torturous confinement. They don’t watch us closely, instead trusting us to hold our end of the bargain. We intend to, of course, and there would be little they could do to stop us, but their faith is…admirable. Still, we’ve made certain amendments to the agreement without their knowledge. No one in this age truly recognizes us and those who might have some inkling are absent to the courage to chase their curiosity. As such, I have been able to visit the library and archives beneath the Church regularly. Sneaking out is little more than a casual stroll off the island. So much of written history has been kept…but not all. I must know why.

ARC 5 - PARACLETE

CHAPTER 6 - BEHOLD THE SUN

Prolonged agony is what it was. Not so sudden that one might be able to stomach the pain, knowing it would come in one swift burst. This was more like a sickness, sapping strength and draining will. Food tasted odd and the body fell further into frailty. Sleep was shallow if it even came at all. Every movement, the slightest adjustment in the endless search for comfort, only met with more pain.

And it had only been two days.

When the loose clothing Tera wore brushed across her it felt like daggers into her skin. As she walked across the grounds she winced with every step. Why she thought the process would take only a few hours was a cursed thought. She could feel the way the ink pulled at her. It took up every piece of her waking mind. The endless pricks of the needle hurt, but it was the constant tug and burn of the tiny blue lettering left behind that haunted her. It pulled at her very core, something that still brought a moment’s panic whenever she considered it despite knowing exactly what was happening thanks to Harut’s explanation of the process.

Two dozen or so stairs were torturous with how her pants wrapped tightly around her thighs. Undressing was a much slower process than it had ever been before. She caught a glimpse of herself in a dusty mirror atop the dresser near the bed. She looked…irregular, to say the least. Sure, Raegn had similar-looking work done on his one arm, but that was more artistic in nature. Still, she could see that there was a beauty to the small sigils and sweeping lines that crossed her body and snaked down her limbs. But would anyone else? She’d wanted these markings to be less of an outcast, not more of one.

“Ready to continue?” the Angel asked as she delicately dipped the needle into the blue liquid.

Tera nodded, but didn’t make a move toward the bed. Laying down hurt. Standing hurt, too, but marginally less.

The Angel stepped over and returned to her work, finishing lines that trailed down the sides of Tera’s legs and ended atop her feet. Similar detailing was done on her arms and backs of her hands. The sun had been on one horizon when Tera had arrived at the Highlord’s manor and was on another when, finally, the last prick was done. Like plunging into cold water, Tera’s body failed her. The air left her lungs as if she’d been punched and she fell to a knee, unable to stand from the shock. She heard the needle clatter into the glass container and managed to look up. Harut wiped her hands on a rag, studying her work.

“How do you feel?” Sorcery asked.

Tera took a deep breath, testing her own health. It was clean. The burning had left her, both body and soul. She stood, slowly, but was no longer woozy and the fog was absent her mind. She studied her arms, then twisted this way and that so she could see her back and shoulders in the mirror. There was a massive piece across it from where all others spread, layers of circles, each made of up tiny script but with more lettering between. She looked like a page from a book brought to life, like the very instructions of the world had been written onto her.

“I feel...good.”

“Are you ready?”

Raegn watched the princess, the delicate dove, give a small nod to Nora’s query as she stared at trembling hands atop her lap. He pulled the helm over his head. After the brief flash of blackness, Nora was looking at him. No words, but the same question. He would be the first one out. The carriage was well built, but did little to dampen the noise of the crowd. Half of them were already yelling.

A stiff nod. The door opened. The blinding sun. And a roar of anger.

The crowd swelled like a building wave and burst the moment Victoria’s foot touched the ground. The carriage had come to a stop outside the palace, two hundred paces or so from the gate proper. A long walk, but one they’d been warned of. They knew the Shaktikans were liable to make a show of it; they’d been escorted by a hundred of their riders since crossing the border. The Crownguard armor was ornate, memorable, and too on-the-nose for Raegn’s liking, but the Sunstriders, as the Shaktikan elite force called themselves, were every bit as bad. Every piece of their armor held the emblem of a blazing sun. Even the pommels of their swords were shaped like it. Both man and horse had ribbons fastened to them that streamed behind them as they rode. And they never shut up. For sevens days they hooted and hollered back and forth from sun-up until sun-down, their voices never tiring or fading.

The general populace held a similar state of mind, if only in producing noise. The difference in content was the disconcerting part. The Sunstriders had at least been respectful when it came to Victoria, so long as never saying a word to her could be considered respect. The crowd that lay in wait outside the carriage bore no such restraint. Shouts of “Elysian whore!” and “thin-skin” were rampant and, as they made their way towards the palace gate, those gathered began to push against the line of guards serving as the sole barricade. Either unwilling or unable to put forth the force to break past them, the crowd turned to ranged tactics.

The first piece of rotten fruit whizzed in front of Raegn’s face. Something vaguely orange-colored, though with spots of white and green. He and Nora collapsed around the princess, raising their shields on either side to keep her from being struck. Some of the hits rang of their square shields loud enough that they were liable to be stones rather than produce. Raegn’s grip on the brace of his shield tightened. The marriage might end in an alliance between rulers, but if this is what people thought of Elysians he wondered if the armies of the two kingdoms might not just massacre one another the first time they met in supposed peace.

Hopefully, Mistress Edolie staying with the carriage and their belongings meant the poor woman wouldn’t be subjected to the same harassment. Shielding the princess took their full attention, so the plump handmaiden might catch a stone to the temple were she to try and tail them.

Raegn grabbed the edge of his long cloak and pulled it up to Victoria’s shoulder, covering the portion of her back that his own body wasn’t protecting now that they were nearing the gate and most of the crowd was to their rear. Even through his gauntleted hand he could feel her shake with trembling breaths.

The poor girl. She’d admitted this wasn’t what she wanted; just a child going along with her father’s wishes. Yet despite her fear, she kept walking forward. With a free hand, Nora offered her a clean white kerchief. Victoria took it and dried her eyes, though rather than offer it back she kept it clutched in a hand at her side.

With the gate closed behind them, only the shouts could do any harm. A quick inspection of his shield revealed plenty of muck from items that may not have even been food and a few tiny dents. Raegn did his best to shake off the larger bits that clung to the metal and covered the owl’s wings that spread from corner to corner, an attempt that Nora mirrored. Victoria waited the moment it took them before she was willing to continue forward.

The palace was impressive, its structure colored the same as the rusty earth that was all around them. A dozen tall towers jabbed upward into the sky, too thin to allow more than a single man to stand in their tallest room. There were tiers to it, a bit like Bastion, Raegn realized. With each set of walls they passed, they ascended stairs until they reached the fourth and final gate; either made entirely from or at least coated in, gold.

It swung open while they were still some distance away, removing Victoria’s final chance to compose herself, would she have desired such a thing. She dabbed her eyes a final time and hastily stuffed the kerchief somewhere into her dress where it couldn’t be seen. Raegn fell back some after catching Nora do the same out the corner of his eye. They weren’t guests, only guards. Victoria was the one needing to be seen. They were insignificant. Nameless, too, if luck would favor them.

“Welcome, Victoria Melrose, Princess of Elysia,” a man called from behind them once they’d entered.

The room was silent save for their footfalls and the faint sound of their armor as they crossed the well-tiled floor, another emblem of the sun inlaid at the exact center. Victoria came to a stop some distance before the Shaktikan Emperor. Even sitting, Raegn could tell he was a bit larger than average. Not as tall or quite as broad as Cenric or the Highlord, but somewhere between the two and Raegn’s own size. He had a beard the color of slate that came to a neat point shortly below his chin and the crown of gold he wore matched that of the embroidery on his clothes. They were something between a robe and tunic, likely to help manage the heat even though it was cooler inside the large room than it had been beneath the sun.

“Thank you for accepting me into your kingdom, Your Majesty,” Victoria said with a curtsy.

The Emperor didn’t lift his head from atop a fist, instead continuing to lean to one side of his throne, somehow disinterested in the arrival of his future daughter. Or perhaps it was disappointment? His eyes were hard-set in a scowl when he looked upon her.

Was this that much of a loss for them? Raegn wondered. Could King Melrose have outmaneuvered them diplomatically so completely that they had no choice but to accept, knowing it was the first step of reuniting the Realm under Elysia?

“At least you’re sensible in social graces,” the Emperor grunted. Then, with a wave of his hand at the man next to him, said, “My eldest, Tirin, First Prince of Shaktika and your husband-to-be.”

Tirin was more average in size, though he bore the same stern face with an angled jaw and thin chin. His cheeks were absent any hair and that atop his head was a stiffer black than the aged locks of his father. Tirin, unlike his father, bore no look of boredom or anger. His grin was wide and his eyes aglow.

“My, my, you’ll have to be a bit tougher to live under our harsh sun,” Tirin said, stepping down from where he’d stood next to his father’s throne. “Our people do not shy away, for there is nowhere to hide here where it cannot reach.”

Tirin took Victoria’s hand and held it for a tauntingly long moment before his face before finally pressing his lips against her skin.

“You are certainly beautiful, despite your paleness,” he remarked as he let her take back her hand.

“T-thank you,” Victoria answered. “I was told you have a sister?”

Tirin’s brow furrowed for a moment, though it was gone fast enough that Raegn couldn’t see if the Emperor had a matching reaction. In the second it took him to glance up at the throne, Tirin had gone back to a grin.

“Ah, yes. Tanis. She’s a bit of an unruly one. Even father has trouble keeping her in line.”

“Will I be meeting her today, as well?” Victoria asked.

“Perhaps at dinner,” Tirin answered flatly. “You must be tired from your journey and weary from your…arrival,” the First Prince added. “Our servants will show you to your quarters.”

“Oh,” Victoria replied. “Thank you. And my guards?”

“Yes, yes, they’ll be with you,” Tirin said dismissively as he turned towards the edge of the room where several women stood in drab clothes. “You there, take our guests!”

They scurried out from the shadow along the wall, curtsying deeply first before Emperor Khada, then the First Prince, then Victoria.

“Enough! Just go, won’t you!” Tirin ordered them.

“A pleasure, meeting you, Your Majesty,” Victoria said with a curtsy of her own in the direction of the throne.

A raised hand was all the Emperor gave in acknowledgment.

“That wasn’t awkward to you?” Nora asked, pressing back on her earlier point.

Raegn shrugged. “Maybe they get tired by the properness of it all. I would, too, if I had to deal with it every day.”

“They were practically rude to her face!”

It was true, but all he could do was shake his head. If Nora were so well versed in royal etiquette maybe she was better at making that judgment. For now, Raegn was just happy to have the helmet off his head and his arm free of the shield. They’d put on different cloaks, the same black that reached the floor, but these ones free of the debris the previous had garnered. Their shields, too, had been wiped clean and they’d quickly changed their underclothes to get out of sweat-soaked ones. There wasn’t any glass in the whole palace, it seemed, and the openings in the walls serving as windows allowed in a breeze. Raegn stood by one, hoping it would help cool him some despite it being just as warm as the rest of the air.

“I shouldn’t have asked after his sister a second time,” Victoria said from the small vanity where she sat with Edolie brushing her hair.

The handmaiden had indeed stayed inside the carriage, Raegn had learned with much relief. She’d been able to avoid the worst of the crowd and brought some of their belongings up while they’d been meeting the Emperor and First Prince. The rest had been carried up by other servants only moments ago.

“Now, now,” Edolie said, shushing the princess. “I’m sure everything will be fine at dinner.”

Raegn frowned. Victoria’s sole retainer was an oddity. For one, she was sweating like a pig, her plumpness shaping out the skirts tied at her waist yet refusing to remove any layers or choose a lighter material to wear. Half the time she spoke not a word, allowing the princess to do as she wished or pleased. That bit was fitting considering the difference in their roles and titles, but then there were times like these, where she would tread on Victoria like a mother correcting her child. It had been the same those first few hours after leaving Elysium when she’d reminded the princess of her every obligation during this journey.

Whatever their interactions, he wasn’t going to argue against the woman. Victoria had slumped into the massive bed in her quarters the moment the Shaktikan servants had left them alone and not gotten up for anything other than Edolie’s proding. The poor girl needed all the encouragement she could get.

And there was none of it to be found at dinner.

The dining room was as lavish as any Raegn had ever seen, and he could see all of it from the far end where he and Nora had been left to stand by the door. It, like so many of the other rooms in the palace, had paintings tall as two men hung on the walls, curtains draped along the ceiling, and every flat surface bore some sort of gold or silver container. Some were chests, others jugs, but all were ornately decorated. In fact, the only thing room lacked, and most of the palace, now that he thought on it, was greenery. Probably because they couldn’t survive the heat, though he wouldn’t have considered it odd if the Tsurat family wasted water keeping them alive.

Victoria sat at the table in the room’s center, close enough that they would hear her if she called for them but too far to glean any conversation. Raegn wasn’t sure the Princess heard the conversation, either. Khada and Tirin were at the table’s head and seemed to talk amongst themselves through the entire meal. Tanis’s arrival was the only time there was anything loud enough to be heard throughout the room and it was remarkably brief. The Shaktikan princess came in wearing what appeared to be riding clothes, her black hair hardly staying in the single, long braid that ran down her back. The Emperor scolded her first for tardiness and then for appearances. Whatever Tanis’s reply had been, it only angered her father further. Khada had shouted at her, she left not to return, and the meal finished in silence.

The sole piece of information learned was that tomorrow the royal family would be attending a duel - and Victoria was expected to be present. Her face had gone white and remained that way the entire walk back to her room.

“It’s a duel,” Raegn scoffed. “Wouldn’t a princess be expected to be present at an execution?”

“Not necessarily,” Nora quipped. “Maybe her father handled them all. Besides, it’s not a single duel.”

Raegn raised a brow, not that she would see it beneath his helm, but she garnered enough from the shift in his shoulders. They’d been arguing Victoria’s mental state since posting themselves outside her door, their voices kept low so she wouldn’t hear their concern. It had only been one day, but the princess already looked defeated.

“Shaktikan’s use duels as executions,” Nora explained. “One of the combatants is always sponsored by the royal family. Criminals and the like are usually sentenced to trials by combat.”

“And what if the criminal wins?”

“They’re set free, though I think I remember reading that most end up in the Shaktikan army, and probably not by choice. They also don’t win that often. One of the--,” Nora looked up and down the hallway and lowered her voice even further before continuing. “One of the Inquisitors told me they beat and starve the prisoners in the days leading up to their duel. Anything to make them less likely to be victorious. Most of them are already weak because they were poor to begin with and got caught stealing. He even said the Tsurat’s perpetuate poverty because the whole city comes to watch the duels. Hides the problem, he said. Plus, it’s not like the royal family is sponsoring amateurs. They pay handsomely. Some of the most renowned fighters are in their pocket.”

So they were going to watch men be massacred in combat. Wonderful, Raegn thought. The dainty dove of a princess was bound to thoroughly enjoy that.