Juliette VI

PA 0 (6th month)

“So, you’re saying that if you mix two colors together, you can make new colors?”

“Of course! Mix red and yellow, and you get orange. Mix blue and red, and you get purple. All colors can be mixed with each other. Though, if you mix too many together, you’d just get brown.”

Li stared down at the chunky paints like she’d never seen them before. “Incredible. To think, even at my age there are still so many mysteries in the world.”

“Please don’t talk like you’re an old lady, you’re barely older than me.”

“I have two children. Trust me, once you’ve had your first, you spend the rest of your life feeling like an old woman.”

“Then I hope that day never comes.”

Li just laughed at her.

Shaking her head, Juliette turned back to her paints, dabbing another spot of white on her painting. She’d decided to draw the moon and planets on the side of her house. It felt like a fun in-joke to her, that nobody besides another God-King would be able to recognize the painting. It was also to help her memory—she almost forgot what Saturn looked like! Saturn! The one with the giant rings! How could she forget that one!?

“Mama, mama!” little Chaoxing called, grabbing at his mother’s furs. “Look! Look at what I made!”

“Oh, I see!” Li smiles at him, crouching down to look at his artwork. “Incredible! It looks like you’re truly skilled, little Chao!”

The painting itself was just a bunch of painted lines haphazardly thrown along the wood. If she squinted, she could say it almost reminded her of some of the modern art she’d seen.

“I, um, I also made this…” the quieter of the two children squeaked, Min lifting up the rock she’d been painting on herself. She’d given it a face—it actually looked kind of cute.

Juliette couldn’t help but smile. At the rate they were going, the whole village would be painted by the end of the year!

Then, suddenly, the shuffling of grass signaled the end of their short peace.

“My Queen!” Qian’s voice shouted. Turning, she saw the man running up to her, helping another man limp their way up to her.

“Qian?” she asked, standing up sharply. ‘Why’s he here? He should be guarding the gate right now!’ “What’s wrong? Who is this? Are we under attack!?”

“Bad!” the other man gasped from where he was draped over Qian. “Meiling… attack…”

“Calm down!” Juliette ordered the man, not feeling calm herself. “Deep breaths! If you die before you can tell me what’s going on, I’ll kill you myself! So breathe, soldier!”

“Yes, my Queen!” he tried to salute, only to choke and fall back on Qian.

“I told you to breathe! Stop wasting your breath talking!” she snapped, before turned back to Qian. “Do you know what’s going on?”

“No, my Queen,” he shook his head. “I saw him stumble towards the gates just a little bit ago. He was one of the men we left with Meiling—Sheng is his name. He’s got a few scrapes and bruises, but he’s not injured as far as I can tell. He’s just exhausted.”

“I see…” Juliette hummed, frowning. “Li, why don’t you take your children back home. The two of us will figure out what’s going on soon enough.”

“Aw!” Chaoxing whined. “But I wanna know what’s going on!”

“Not now, dear,” Li hummed, shepherding away the children.

“Right,” Juliette sighed, before waving at Qian to follow her. “Come on, this way. Bring him to my house, I’ll get him some water and a place to sit. Whatever’s happened, this man deserves some rest.”

A few minutes later they were in her hut, Qian guarding the door and Sheng guzzling water like his life depended on it.

“Are you good now?” Juliette asked, seated across from him. Her house was modest, just another room attached to the hut she woke up in. Small, sure, but it’s not like a big mansion would have air-conditioning anyway, so anything would feel primitive to her. And honestly, it was better then her first college dorm, so she could deal with it.

“Yes, my Queen,” the man gasped as he pulled the jug away from his face. “I… thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” she sighed. “I doubt I’ll like what I’m about to hear.”

Sheng grimaced. “You’d be right. You see, lady Meiling, she… she is dead.

Juliette forced herself to close her eyes, shoving aside all the emotions that statement brought up for the moment. She had to focus on this. “What… what happened. Please, tell me.”

“I… it was during the siege. The army had surrounded the city, and—”

“Siege!? What siege!?”

“The… siege,” Sheng told her, looking confused. “Surely you knew about the army attacking the city. She told us reinforcements were coming. Did… did you not know?”

“…No, I did not,” she breathed. “Back up a bit. Why was the city under siege?”

“Well, after she declared war on that village down the river, she—”

“Wait,” Juliette interrupted. “She attacked someone!? Why!? And why didn’t she tell me!?”

“I don’t know,” the man shrugged. “I’m sorry, but I wasn’t privy to her thoughts. I just did as I was ordered.”

‘That wouldn’t save you in the Nuremburg Trials!’ she thought angrily, before sighing. This wasn’t his fault, and it’s not like she got to complain about war crimes after what she’s done. Still…

“Continue,” she grunted. “What happened next?”

“Well, um, she lost, my Queen.”

“I’d gathered that.”

“And the enemy took her city.”

“And now they’re coming here?”

“Almost certainly, my Queen.”

Juliette wanted to curse. She really, really did. Why did she have to cultivate a perfect Queen persona? Queens should be allowed to curse. Once this was over with, she’d start cultivating a perfect-Queen-who-cursed persona.

“Qian!” she called out. “Prepare the soldiers. It seems we’re fighting a war, now.”

“They’re already on alert, my Queen,” he bowed to her. “I’ll inform them of the rest of what’s going on now.”

“Good,” she nodded. “Now, Sheng,” she turned back to the man, who suddenly looked very nervous. Why the hell did he look nervous? “Go to the soldiers’ barracks and get some rest. I’ll need every spear ready to defend our home, and I want you in peak condition when the time comes. Understood?”

The man, for some reason, looked relieved. “Of course, my Queen! I’ll drive the bastards from our home myself if I have too!”

“Good man,” she smiled, patting his shoulder.

And then he was gone, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

God, this was a clusterfuck, wasn’t it?

She’d been planning a war, but on the offensive. This sudden war ruined dozens of plans (well, okay, only like one) and could turn out to be the end of her. She’d lost a third of her kingdom in the time it took to blink.

And Meiling…

The woman had been her mentor. She’d taught her everything she needed to know about ruling her tribe. And though a lot of those lessons were obvious things like ‘show no weaknesses’ and ‘might makes right,’ it had still been beyond kind of her to help her. The old warhawk had been her first real friend in this world.

And now she was gone.

Alone on her bed, Juliette stopped holding back, and allowed herself to cry.

--

Preparations for the upcoming battle were swift—it’s not like she hadn’t been prepared for something like this to happen, she just hadn’t been expecting it so soon. Though perhaps that was her own fault—Sam certainly didn’t expect her.

She’d need to be better than that. Her life depended on it, after all.

The first thing she did was scramble her soldiers. They’d be on shifts so they could stay rested while waiting for the next battle, though that wouldn’t be sustainable if they had to wait more than a few days.

The second thing she did was send out a runner to message her other city, the one by the lake. It had originally been ruled by that one God-King that got thrown in the lake, so she’d seen it as easy pickings to take for herself. And it was, in a way, though she was aware that those people despised God-King’s in general, so she’d kept to a light touch with them. This would be the first time she’d call on them for something big, and she desperately hoped they’d answer.

Finally, she sent out scouts to see if they could locate the invading army, along with any other stragglers. Sheng had run straight through the night to inform her of what had happened, something that an army would never be able to compete with. Still, if they didn’t find anyone within a couple hours, they were told to return. They’d need all the help they could get, after all.

Climbing up onto the city walls, she paused, turning to look out over her city.

It was small. She could see from one end to the other with ease, even before she got onto the walls. From up high, she could see over the roofs of each house, small chimneys letting out smoke where the non-combatants huddled. Scattered across the walls of the buildings she could see the occasional painting, ranging from animals to people to random squiggles.

This was her city. This is what she’s protecting.

She took a deep breath to center herself, and climbed that final step to the top of the walls.

And was immediately shocked by what she saw.

“My Queen!” one of the soldiers next to her grabbed her attention. “Look! They’re here!”

‘What!?’ she thought incredulously, staring out at the invading army. ‘How the hell did they get here so fast!? How did they—the fucking river.’

Of course. If was obvious in retrospect. Why waste time and energy marching through a forest in enemy territory when you could just take a boat there?

‘Fuck,’ she hissed mentally. ‘Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. I fucking knew the river was going to get me eventually! I should have worked to block off that side sooner!’

She took a deep breath. ‘Calm, focus,’ she told herself. ‘I can’t let them see me panicked. Just calm down and look at this logically—I’ve already gotten everyone ready. I don’t have my scouts, but a couple people hopefully won’t make the difference. Still, this means I can say goodbye to any backup… unless…’

“Everyone!” she called out, getting the attention of her soldiers. “Be prepared for a siege! We won’t win this battle with numbers, we’ll win it with strategy! Like all the ones we’ve fought before! We’ll win this battle, defeat this army, and kill that damned king so hard his grandparents will feel his passing! So brace yourself, because this war will be harsh, but it’s rewards ever sweeter!”

A smattering of cheers broke out across the walls, weak and quiet at first, before gradually picking up into an explosive cacophony, the cheering itself doing more to bolster the soldier’s morale than any speech she could ever make.

She let the cheers wash over her before turning to Qian. “Make sure everyone important knows what our plan it. We aren’t going to be able to survive a protracted siege, so instead we’ll hold out for reinforcements. Once they get here, we’ll hit them with a pincer attack,” she told him quietly.

“I’ll see it done, my Queen,” he nodded at her, before marching quickly down the walls.

Letting out a small sigh, Juliette turned towards back towards where the army was setting up. Surprisingly, they hadn’t advanced much, settling in near a bunch of boulders closer to the tree line.

For some reason, that filled her with unease. The longer they waited to attack, the more time she’d get to prepare. The other leader had to have known that—it’s not like either of them were ignorant of how war worked at this point. Even if they were settling in for a siege, they were still way too far away. So why weren’t they coming closer?

Juliette squinted at them. It looked like they were setting something up over there, something with logs and… rope? Were they trying to build a fort over there? That… wouldn’t be good. She’d spent the past hours preparing for a siege of her own—having to siege down somebody else’s fort would be a whole other beast.

Wait, no, they were now making… triangles? She squinted harder. What the hell were they doing over there!?

It was only once she saw them loading the boulder into a net that she realized what they were building.

‘Is that a fucking catapult!?’

She opened her mouth to—something. Shout a warning, curse her enemies, scream in terror. Something.

Unfortunately, she’d never get the chance, as the enemy launched their first shot at her walls. The boulder flew in defiance of any gravity that tried to drag it down, getting closer and closer every second.

And through some divine misfortune, it seemed to be aimed straight for her.

With an aborted scream, the boulder hit, and everything went black.

9,921 God-Kings Remain