A Tale of Revenge

Dear most wonderful readers! I am back and the story is finished! There will be 8 more chapters and an epilogue to come...to think I started this with no more than 8 chapters planned. Anyone new to the story, please do consider reading earlier instalments first. They have been edited and updated and this is meant to be read as a whole.

Also, as a warning, things are going to take a dark turn for the next few chapters. I did warn that things were going to get worse for Anna and I meant it. I have a love/hate relationship with non-con and the next act is a lot of the "hate" part of that equation. Also note there will be a lot of plot and world-building coming up. Again, read previous chapters to catch up on characters and lots more naughty bits.

I want to thank my amazing beta readers/editors Lee and

Lethicia. This story is so much better thanks to both of you and your amazing attention to detail and investment in the plot and characters. I owe you both big time.

Without further ado...

Ch. 8

The capital was a messy place for two country-bred travelers. Dev was more at home than Anna, having been a regular visitor during the busiest times for the city. Anna tried very hard to keep the wonder off her face but she was finding it impossible given the sheer amount of things within her line of sight at any given moment. Dev gave a laugh and warned her against appearing too green and attracting pickpockets. Anna tried to school her features to neutral but he had to remind her several times.

The capital had once been the seat of a great empire. The Empress that had ruled and conquered the neighboring kingdoms had created a prosperous and progressive city where children were educated and inventors came together with scholars to create and learn together. Anna had heard tales of the golden age, her grandmother had been taught in just such a school. But the Empress's son had failed to live up to his mother's work and when his daughter took the throne, the fissures that had begun in his reign broke entirely.

The city still held the promise of greatness. Magnificent buildings littered the banks of the river. A bridge, once thought impossible to build in such a deep body of water, was clogged with traffic, connecting the two banks. Anna squeezed across with Dev, moved as they were with the crowd. In the center she looked up into the face of the Empress as her statue gazed out across the city she had built. For a moment Anna thought the statue looked rather sad for what was meant to be a triumphant monument, but she lost the chance at a second look as she was pulled back into the swell of the crowd and the statue was out of sight.

The wonder wore off faster than she thought. The crush of humanity came with its own drawbacks and she found herself soon overwhelmed in a completely different way by the smells and the constant push of the city dwellers as if they were trying to move through her.

Her dark mood from before they entered had not entirely lifted, despite the myriad of distractions before her. She found her mind constantly drifting back to the last few days, attempting to make sense of all that had happened and instead found herself overcome and confused. Dev had seen her apprehension and offered his support but this time she had closed herself off to him again. Anything that had to do with Leonid was too hard for her to sort out and she certainly couldn't tell Dev about it.

She came to a sudden halt in the lower market in front of a stand full to the brim with trinkets and utensils, all in the brightest blue glass. Her horse, surprised at her sudden stop, nearly walked into her and Dev was brought up short as well.

"It's called cobalt," he said when he saw what she was looking at. He came up next to her, the lead of his horse held tightly in his hand against thieves. Anna was jostled from behind but too distracted to be annoyed. The color was not nearly as vibrant as Leonid's eyes but it diverted her all the same.

"I remember. The gypsies brought it through my village a few years ago. The blacksmith bought his wife a necklace of beads. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen." Anna said quietly, remembering the outrageous expense the whole village had been whispering about. She had followed June shyly to the house where their daughter had snuck them a peek at it before it was put away again in some secret place. She wondered if it was still there, buried in the rubble of the house. Suddenly tears stung her eyes and she turned quickly away, the memories of home offering no comfort.

Dev followed behind her. It was so unusual to hear her speak of her home or past that he hadn't wanted to scare her off the subject. But it seemed her memories had taken care of that for him. He paused a moment longer and then turned to follow her.

Anna settled on an inn called the Dancing Dove near the upper markets. They still had plenty of funds but anything beyond this point in the city was more than what they could consider reasonable. Anna had wanted to get closer to the castle but Dev had assured her there was no way. Beyond the upper markets were much more lavish lodgings, then the aristocratic homes and temples. This was as close as they could reasonably hope to come. And besides, he said, they should save some coin for when they left.

This surprised her more than it should have. She was so focused on the goal that she had given not a moment's thought to what she would do when it was over. Besides the brief consideration Leonid had inspired the night before, Anna had never contemplated what would come once she succeeded. The thought was not a pleasant one and she stubbornly refused to even consider it. Dev must have sensed her unease because he quickly engaged the innkeeper about a room. Anna, still dressed as a boy, withdrew beneath her hood and tried to send every silent signal possible that she was not to be spoken to.

The owner at the Dancing Dove was a jovial man who seemed completely immune to Anna's prickly demeanor. Truth be told, she was feeling uneasy at the sudden press of the crowds and this man's friendliness actually felt strange to her after so many months of conflict. Despite her disguise, the proximity of so many people made her feel like she was always on the verge of being found out. Dev, not suffering as she did, fell into an easy conversation with the man.

"And what do you know? The war is turning around and soon things will be back to normal." The man was saying. Gravis was his name, Anna reminded herself. She had not been terribly attentive at his introduction.

"So soon? It feels like only a season ago that we heard of possible defeat. Have they so quickly turned the tides?" Dev said surprised. Anna started paying attention at last, politics interesting her more than the pleasantries they had been engaging in up until now. It wasn't hard to pick up on. Everywhere they went people were speaking of the war and the coming winter.

Gravis laughed. "Well the king is eager to see it settled. Too much strife can tear apart the country, especially with the nobles sniffing at his legitimacy and tales of long lost heirs being turned into ballads for the crowds."

Anna's eyes grew wide. It seemed impossible to her that people could speak so freely about their monarch. Gravis noticed and gave her a wink "Most wouldn't dream to tell you that lad, but I've never been one for propriety."

"Aren't you worried?" Anna asked without thinking.

"The king has bigger fish to fry than an old loud mouth in a tavern," Gravis said, confident and jovial as ever.

Anna shook her head, tightening her lips as if saying she wouldn't dream of saying a thing like that.

Dev took the conversation elsewhere and Anna excused herself to her room. She and Dev would be sharing this time to save money. She wondered how it would work before she found the bed was actually two cots pushed up next to each other, their mattresses held together only by some cleverly folded sheets. Anna separated the beds and collapsed into hers. For the first time since beginning this trip, she wasn't sure what was coming next. Tonight she would try to scout the barracks, to see if any of her targets were accessible. If they weren't though, she didn't have another plan.

She imagined what it would take to sneak into the palace and the thought unnerved her. But if she were honest there was still a nagging feeling left over from Leonid's visit. Dread of both the unknown she faced and the withdrawal of her godly owner sat in her gut like a stone. She felt his absence acutely; knowing he would not come was infinitely worse than not knowing when he might appear. Her troubled thoughts kept her up a while longer but finally she drifted off as the sun reached midday outside.

Evening found her yanking at her spare dress as she tried to get the bodice to sit right. Dev was facing away, giving her privacy as he mended a hole in her leather breeches, which were now much worse for wear.

"Damn this bloody dress," she muttered.

Dev laughed. "If you rip that as well you'll be sitting here for a while. I'm not much of a tailor."

Finally the dress sat on her body with minimal discomfort and she huffed over to where Dev was sitting. She took the mending project from his hands and set about doing it in rapid, studied motions. Dev's eyes went wide as he took in the sight of her.

"Don't stare. It's impolite," Anna said crossly. She was feeling miserably uncomfortable in more ways than one. Her sight had been completely blocked as she reached it out towards the palace and she was beginning to get more apprehensive about her lack of a plan.

"Sorry," Dev said with a smile. "Seeing you in a dress is quite a shock. You might fool some of these city-dwellers into thinking you're a girl."

"I am a girl," Anna snapped back.

"Keep telling yourself that," Dev replied calmly and got up from the bed.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Anna said, frowning down at a particularly gnarled part of the patch Dev had been working on. She saw him shrug as a reply out of the corner of her eye.

"Sitting on thorns again?" he asked conversationally.

She sighed, untangling the thread and finally setting the seams against each other. "I'm feeling decidedly uncertain about what to do next. I can't see the soldiers here, I only know that they are somewhere beyond the wall of magic around the castle."

"Strange," Dev said with a distracted air.

"What's strange?" she kept at the work. The familiarity of the motions was soothing to her and helped lessen the unease that had been eating at her all day.

"Well most of the army is gone to war, which means only the king's guard should be left at the castle, if that. I mean, the king himself has been at the front lines until just this week." He paced back and forth before continuing. Dev had been infinitely more successful at gaining information during their trip, and could put the pieces together better than she could. "That means this troop of guards has been either absent from their duties to the king or acting in direct response to some order."

Anna looked up at him. "You mean to tell me that the king himself must have sent these soldiers across the country to destroy a small village?" Was the king ultimately responsible for this? If so how could she possibly imagine being able to bring justice down on his head?

"It's a theory," Dev muttered. "Or perhaps they were left behind to guard the castle and decided to get their jollies by marching with a group of their old comrades out to some remote village to have their way with everyone in their path."

Anna sighed and went back to her mending. They were back where they began. Dev continued to pace.

"I think we have to get close to the castle tonight. We should try to see what's there and how it's blocking my sight. Perhaps if there is a way around it, I can find out more about what's on the other side."

Dev made a frustrated noise before conceding the point. They had hopelessly little alternative.

*

Midnight found them on the periphery of the temple district. Anna had shielded them as they slipped through town on foot but the walk was a long one and it had taken the better part of the evening to arrive at the edge of the castle grounds. The grand structures around them fell away and the ground before them rose up on a steep slope up towards the expansive building beyond. There was no cover, of course, but that meant little with Anna's magic. She surveyed the building and its fortifications, wondering where she might find the soldiers' quarters.

Dev yanked on her sleeve. She turned towards him and he pointed towards an easier incline off to their left and she nodded to follow him. They followed a small servant's path up the side of the hill to a heavily barred postern gate in the fortifications. There were soldiers posted above them but they seemed to be more interested in joking loudly to one another about the dangers of their post. Anna and Dev slipped invisibly under the heavy stone framework that hung out over the door.

Anna placed her hand against the wood and called upon her magic, seeking out some mode of entrance. Just as the magic was reaching out of her fingertips, something stirred beneath her fingers. Anna took her hands off the door as if they had been burned, just managing to keep the fire in her fingertips from touching the strange magic in the wood. Dev grasped her shoulder, and she could feel his apprehension. Anna looked at the wood, as if expecting it to move. But it had been magic that she had felt, not the wood itself.

She reached in with her sight, pulling on the black fire inside her to the surface. She felt an answering movement in the wood but no contact was made. When she opened her eyes the world was lit up with the shimmer of magic, burning a deep steely grey in her vision. The magic in the door reached far beyond the confines of the wood and she found herself stepping out from under the stones that shielded them from the guards' view and she gazed up at the palace in wonder.

The entire wall was covered in the finest net of gleaming power, and where the wall ended above her, the net continued upwards, swaying slightly in the breeze as it formed a magnificent shining dome over the entirety of the grounds. Anna's jaw fell open and she stepped further back. She had never seen anything like this, even with her admittedly slight knowledge of the nature of magic this seemed remarkably inspired. Someone had woven their spells together as if they were thread, creating a self-sustaining meshwork of protection that floated over the sprawling grounds.

She stepped further back and stumbled, forgetting that the path was bordered by another steep slope down towards the city proper. Dev caught her arm before she fell in earnest, but not before they made enough noise to be noticed by even the neglectful guards above them.

"Oy! Who's there?" one of the startled guards called down. Anna froze, as did Dev. She was still obscuring their forms so the guards would not be able to see them, but there was a limit to what she could do past the barrier of magic. She heard the sounds of the inner door opening. Dev grabbed her hand and started pulling her down the path, swiftly but silently as the sounds of voices grew nearer and the outer door where they had been standing a few moments before was thrown open.

Anna hazarded a look back and froze in her tracks. She recognized the faces of the men who had been in her village instantly. At least two of them stood there, squinting into the darkness. With the magical wards she had just seen, Anna recognized that this was an opportunity that might not repeat itself. Dev tugged at her arm, growing more desperate as the soldiers advanced and yet she didn't move. Anna shot Dev an apologetic look, which only added to his confusion.

"Sorry," she whispered. She sent her magic out to him, drawing him against a nook in the wall so he was off the path and out of the way. She bound him there so he could not move or speak, and cast a rune over his body so that he would not be seen. His eyes pleaded with her, confusion in every line of his face. But she finished the rune and he disappeared from view.

Turning back towards the advancing group she lowered the spell that hid her from them and she slowly made her way out onto the path, her hands held up, her face fearful and wide eyed. She was the perfect picture of innocence in her country dress, all her weapons well concealed. The soldiers came to a halt. There were four in total, three from the very troop she was interested in.

"What in the Dark God's teat is this?" one of them gasped, lowering his weapon as he caught sight of a girl.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry," she said, terror in her tone. "I just wanted to see the palace from close, and my father told me I wasn't allowed, and I thought I could just come up and touch the wall then it'd be as if I'd seen the whole thing. Please don't kill me, I didn't mean anything. I'm sorry." She said this all very fast. The other soldiers dropped their weapons to their sides as they saw their opponent and judged her no threat. One of them came forward as she spoke and cut her off as he grabbed her wrist tightly in his fist.

"Do you have any idea how much trouble you're in?" he took a moment to look her over, his eyes lingering on her breasts before returning to her face. But instead of the terrified girl he had grabbed he saw the smug satisfaction of a hunter whose bait had been well taken.

"Do you?" she hissed back. With that she sent vines of black fire up the legs of the soldiers who stood there. They yelped in surprise as they found themselves quickly incapacitated, their mouths soon filled to blot out any more sound.

"What a pretty picture you make, all trussed up and ready for me," Anna said, looking directly into the eyes of the one who had grabbed her. His eyes widened. It was what he had said to the blacksmith's wife when he had tied her to her own kitchen table before he inflicted himself on her.

She turned her attention to the others, finding their actions no less horrible. The fourth, however, was a new recruit barely a month into training. Anna lowered the magic from his mouth to his neck so he could speak, but she kept a steady pressure on his throat in warning.

"Where are the others in your unit?" she said harshly, she kept her burning eyes on him. She could see the fear and panic in his eyes. He was not so battle hardened as the others and was easier to manipulate.

"O—oth—others," he stammered.

"Now," she said tersely.

"Sleep—sleeping, or at the n—name day celebration," his voice shook in terror.

"Where is the name day celebration?" Anna felt a rush of excitement. If there were more of them beyond the barrier she and Dev could take out even more of them. Fortune had turned her wheel for her tonight.

"T-Tom's Kitten, in Blower's Edge," his voice was barely above a terrified whisper.

"Thank you," Anna smiled with all the savage satisfaction she was feeling. This was going to be a productive night. She turned her attention back to the other men. She made her way through them, cursed them each and made sure they could neither mention nor act on anything they had seen and heard tonight. They might burn with anger towards their new recruit but they would not be able to hurt him or reveal why they felt this way. Their curses would haunt them silently so as not to give away what had happened. They would act normally, but inside their own heads they would suffer greatly.

Finally she turned back to the young boy. "I'd find a way to get reassigned if I were you." Then she bound him to silence as well. "Now go back to your posts." The four of them turned with a will that was not their own, and shuffled back towards the door.