A Tale of Revenge

Here begins the last chapter. Enjoy!

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Ch. 15

Before long Leonid was called away. There was still a question as to his activities in the realm that needed to be answered. He promised her he'd return when he could. In the meantime, there was still Rafia's arrival to prepare for and she had to decide what to do.

"Who is Rafia?" she asked, when she was preparing to leave, realizing that she didn't actually know for whom she was waiting.

"He is sworn to Emera, and she believes he is the one to bring balance back to the kingdom." He said this in a tone that implied this was not the first time Emera had gotten ahead of herself.

"Do you think so?" Anna inquired. If she did choose to stay, it seemed a lot of what was to come depended on this man.

Leonid shrugged, "It is possible. What I know of him is only what I've seen and my sister has told me, but he does seem to be a decent man with notions of justice and progress in his head. If Emera thinks he will save her empire, he must be in that line of thinking."

Anna nodded, considering everything he'd said. There was much to consider and she needed time. But there were tasks that needed her attention now. "What should I do about Orlith?" she asked quietly. She remembered fighting him in the dungeon and leaving him with the jailor. There were parts of the fight that seemed faded, but the rest was mostly there.

"You could always leave him to rot," Leonid suggested. Even without looking to him, Anna could feel his anger as it ran off him. She turned to see if he were serious.

She was surprised at the pain in his face. He had been in her mind, he must have seen all of the things that had happened to her.

"Was it very terrible?" she felt so silly asking him what had happened to her, but she couldn't bring herself to face it. Hearing it from another was a way of disconnecting from it, as if it happened to someone else.

Leonid wrapped his arms around her. "I was with you every moment of your time here, and you were brave and strong throughout. You fought him every second you could. But he is an evil, twisted soul and, yes, he was terrible to you."

She stayed in his arms. "It's so odd not to really remember what happened, as if that piece of my mind is just gone."

"It's not gone," he sighed, running his hands up and down her back. The gesture was soothing to her, but she couldn't help but feel like he was trying to reassure himself as well, make sure that she was still there and intact. "I put up a barrier but if you focus, it will fall and you will be able to recall your memories again."

"I can't kill him," she said softly into his chest.

"I will not punish you for it, no one would. If anyone deserves it, it is that man." Leonid's voice was harsh but his hands were still gentle.

She shook her head and drew back. "I don't want to."

He gave her a sad smile. "I'm sorry I cannot do it for you. The Five are frustrated with my circumventing their laws here and if I went around killing mortals, it would give them cause to remove me as they did Imonesh."

"For all-powerful beings you seem to have a lot of rules," she noted lightheartedly. It drew a laugh from him.

"You have no idea."

She gave him a small smile. "I don't want you to kill him either."

"I have no soul to corrupt, no energy to be twisted as a being of the First Level."

"But now you can feel guilt and remorse and disgust as a human does. You do not know the toll of revenge until you have sought it out and found the lack of satisfaction as an emptiness that will not be filled."

Leonid raised an eyebrow. "I doubt I could find an iota of remorse for the end of that particular life."

"What is an iota?" she asked when she heard the foreign sounding word, interested in changing the topic.

He smiled, seeing through her tactic. "It means something very small. If you come with me, I'll show you the place it comes from." He took her chin again and placed a soft kiss on her mouth. "Or you can wait till the end of this life and I will show you then."

She looked away briefly, and then back at him. "Thank you," she whispered.

"For what?" he asked.

"For letting me choose."

He gave her a smile. "Well, I'd hate to incur your wrath."

Before Leonid left her he brought her clothing from the inn. Gravis had set it aside for her and Dev when they failed to return and Leonid pulled it through space to her. She felt better putting her traveling clothes back on, something familiar and personal. It made her ache with Dev's absence. There was still a lot to do. Leonid assured her he would be back soon, but he too had things to sort out on The First Level. To some degree Anna was a little relieved, she needed time to consider and being close to him was confusing.

She found Serena and Wreg, still in the main keep where they had spent nearly all of the time while she had been sleeping. Neither had been able to get back to the workroom with the demands of the war council now fully congregated. She masked her form to the others in the room and they quickly came to an understanding that it was time to take a small hiatus from the interminable meetings.

Wreg, playing a very convincing version of the king, declared he was visiting his chambers for an hour or two and would return to hear further proposals, but that he was quite unimpressed with the progress of the eastern war. He left with a flourish and Serena followed Evo and him out. She immediately sent Evo to his chambers to sit on the floor until she called for him and the three of them disappeared beneath Anna's magic to make their way back to the tower.

Back in Evo's workroom, Anna was impressed with the progress Rosli and Innis had made. The fire pit in the middle of the room held at least half of the items that had once been stacked against the walls and covering the tables. Innis was sorting through scrolls and books, separating out benign magic from the very dark. Rosli had at least fifteen items floating above her head at any time, some she sent flying into the fire, others she organized neatly into different shelves. Piled on one table was all of the evidence of Evo's plans, spells, recipes, ingredients, even his journals which were sporadically kept but still damning.

Serena and Wreg were also taken aback momentarily by the change in the room. Shutters were open, the fire burned with a natural orange flame. Most surprising of all was finding Rosli and Innis laughing when they arrived, a sound those walls had certainly not heard in some time.

Rosli turned her dancing eyes towards the three. The last few days had done wonders for her and Innis and they both looked youthful again, no longer aged so severely by their pallor and dread. Anna took solace in that, a reminder of what she had accomplished in her time in the palace.

"Where are the others?" Serena asked, after exclaiming over their improvement of the workroom.

"Alona is upstairs, watching. Marek and Ian are on their way. We've managed to get rid of a lot the dangerous stuff though we need your help with a few of the spells we can't unravel." The two women moved off to a table laid out with various items, boxes, bottles and a cage full of mice. Anna looked at it once, blinked and looked back. Each piece on the table was imbued with various spells like the collars had been, even the animals. While she couldn't tell their intent, she was amazed at the complexity of it. Rosli and Serena were debating the most effective way to remove the listening spells from the mice and Anna realized she had no idea what they were saying. This level of magic, the terms and discipline involved in the understanding were far beyond her own meager education.

Anna cast a glance at the piles of scrolls, books and tomes that lined the walls and covered the tables. She had much to learn if she ever took the time.

"I'm going to see Alona," she said to Wreg and left the workroom. She started up the stairs, which wound around the circumference of the tower's walls. She slowed her steps as she ascended, nearing the attic room where Orlith had held her. Her heart felt tight with anticipation, but the full body terror she expected did not come; the effect of being so close to the room was muted considerably by the lack of clear memories. She took a moment to steady herself, breathing deeply and reminding herself that he was far away, deep under the castle, and unable to hurt her.

She got up and went to the door, pushing it open and looking in. It was empty; Alona was out on the rampart that ran around the exterior of the tower, the entrance to which Anna ignored in favor of this little room. It seemed so innocuous at first. Some odd dusty room with wooden rafters crisscrossing overhead, the pointed roof disappearing into the shadows as it rose above her. Her eyes lingered on the rope still hanging from the lowest rafter, then to the barrel tub, still half full with water, and finally to the dark stains marking the floor. Her blood, she realized. She walked over, confused and disturbed. She knew she had bled here but she could not remember it. Facing the reality without uncovering the memory was unsettling. Anna crouched down and ran her fingers over the dry clots that had stiffened between the cracks in the floor. Her hand came away clean.

She turned her head, surveying the room again, waiting for panic or pain or something to resonate inside her. There was a thin mat on the floor by the wall and she stared at it for a long moment. She had no knowledge of that, no clear idea of what part it had played in her time here. The more she stared, the bigger the hole in her memory burned. He had taken from her the knowledge of this as well as the memory, even the emotion tied to it. She felt nothing when she looked at it. The intention behind that nothing was conspicuous—something had happened to her.

Anna fully understood that it was a bad idea, that it was too soon, and given the lengths that Leonid had gone to in order remove any trace of it from her consciousness, this must be much worse than anything else that had happened. But something inside her rebelled. These things had happened to her, they were her memories, and even in their absence they would continue to haunt her. She wanted to face it, needed to reclaim these pieces of herself that had been broken off from her so she could feel whole again.

So she did as Leonid had instructed, and focused on the mat, on the hole in her knowledge and held that point in her mind, until she felt the wall of his magic begin to crumble. At first it was a trickle, the feeling of lying on it, the hard floor pressing through the flimsy cloth. But quickly the memory took shape and she stayed frozen, as the reason why this particular incident had been so thoroughly erased became ever so clear.

Anna's body reacted before her mind had fully acknowledged the memory. Her stomach lurched and what food was left came up. She remembered it all, his touch, the pain, the pleasure, every moment of it. She choked on her tears as they began to fall, a sob wrenching through her sore throat. Cool hands smoothed her hair back as she retched; Alona's voice was soothing, puncturing the horror the memory had left behind.

"Perhaps we should go back downstairs," Alona said when Anna steadied herself enough to stand.

Anna nodded, though her eyes were still fixed on the dirty mattress in the corner. "He raped me." She needed to say it, to get it out of her somehow and take away some of the burden by voicing it.

Alona took her hand. "It was an evil act by a weak man," she said and paused, sensing that Anna wasn't done.

Anna's eyes blurred with unshed tears. "I laughed at him when he was done. I prodded his pride and ripped into him as he had done to me." She took a deep breath. "So he killed Dev."

Alona grasped her chin and forced her eyes from the offending mattress to her round face. "Do not let small men who act out of anger at some dreamt up injury make you feel that you are responsible for their behavior. He is responsible for his actions. Weak people will try to redirect the guilt for their actions. They will make you feel as if you could stop them, or that you are the reason they do it at all. It is a most vicious lie." Her face was kind but her words were forceful. She released Anna's chin and held her shoulders softly. "These men will fade from our memories, their deeds will be nothing but shadows in the past." Anna could see the pain she felt, her own imprisonment and the acts she must have participated in haunting her lovely eyes.

Anna licked her lips, tears slipping down her cheeks before she brushed them away. "It is possible to know this will pass without truly believing it. Is it not?"

Alona gave a halfhearted chuckle at that, "We are all doing the same thing, Anna. We will all overcome these things with time. For now, I have news of the encroaching army, and a proposal for the others. Let's not tarry too long."

Anna let the older woman usher her downstairs. The others had all gathered again, and though they were calmer, the room buzzed with undirected energy. The real questions came now—what were they going to do?

They all sat around one table, Anna perched herself on a neighboring one, still feeling numb from the memory she'd uncovered. The others spoke briefly about what they had seen and done, most of it amounting to the small freedoms they had just been able to appreciate. Anna smiled at Ian's story at choosing his own food when they ended up in the kitchens. The simple task of loading his own plate was suddenly wonderful and worthy of all their smiles and laughter.

Alona interrupted them shortly though and told them of what she'd seen. Rafia's army, which consisted of at least one third of the standing army in the east, was at least a week away, but the general himself was less than a day from the capital with a sizable fighting force. Rafia, it seemed, had been forewarned and made an impressively coordinated exit from the front lines to advance on the capital.

So what were they to do? Alona could only track his movements from this great a distance and none of them had heard anything in particular about him beyond being the leader of the eastern army. His intentions for the capital seemed clear: deposing the king would bring an end to the eastern war, which had always been an intractable situation.

"We have a choice here," Alona said. "The wards on the castle grounds can be either bolstered to prevent him from entering, or they can disappear and no one would be the wiser. Even those members of the court who do know that Evo put them in place don't fully understand their nature, and Rafia as well as most others probably don't know about them at all. So, as I see it, we can dissolve the wards and disappear from the castle grounds, and allow the political theater to play out as it will. Or we can stay, use the wards to keep Rafia out and negotiate the palace for our agenda."

"And what agenda is that?" Wreg asked.

Alona almost began to speak before she stopped, casting an eye on Anna before continuing. "I'm not sure. I have no political experience and I don't know how these things work."

"Well strategically it doesn't work. You offer only the castle in return for whatever demands you may make, one which could be surrounded and laid siege to until we give up. And who are we to demand anything? Our position seems rather tenuous for bargaining." Wreg said a bit condescendingly, though he was not wrong.

"I thought some present might appreciate the option," Alona grumbled.

There was a brief pause before Anna realized she was talking about her. "Oh," she said, startled. "I'm not..." she stopped. She was the rightful ruler of this kingdom. Somehow talking about it with Leonid had been vague but here, with the rest of them, the idea seemed too real and very absurd. There was no way she was equipped to take on that role. She didn't even know if she wanted it. The room started to feel a bit small.

Serena seemed to understand her sudden loss of words. "Perhaps, Anna, you'd like to think about this some."

"Why is it up to Anna?" Rosli asked, not unkindly but certainly confused.

Serena, Marek and Alona looked slightly uncomfortable. The others were somewhere between confusion and annoyance. But none of the others would say what was her secret to tell.

"I cannot choose for you all. What Alona means is that I may have a political agenda, or at least fear being used in someone else's. I am," she paused at the strangeness of what she was about it say, "apparently descended from royalty."

The room was very quiet. Anna fidgeted. She didn't know how to feel about her ancestry, so she wasn't sure how the others would react. She had no desire to own the mantle of queen, to rule a kingdom and have these people as her subjects. It was too strange an idea for a girl who had seen so little of the world but a few months back and had expected even less.

"You are a descendant of the banished heiress?" Wreg asked quietly. Anna nodded.

"I didn't know until I came here. I set out only to avenge the deaths of my family and my village. I didn't know why the soldiers had come until the king recognized me." Her eyes shifted to the platform she had been chained on when he had first realized who she was. That memory was more or less clear in her mind. She looked back at the others and found that they were avoiding her gaze. If she didn't know better, she would think they looked embarrassed. "What?"

Serena looked at her meaningfully. "Evo was the one who set about looking to find your family." Anna nodded, she knew that already. She frowned and looked back at the others who were shifting uncomfortably. "And then he prepared the soldiers that he and the king chose from the prisons, encouraging their brutality with magic."

Recognition dawned on her. "He used you all to do it." Her tone held no question and no accusation but only Alona and Serena would meet her eye.

"He did," Alona said, her voice sad. "I cast the spell to view the kingdom and the others lent their power so that I might be able to see far enough. As for the rest, Evo drew on us to influence the others. We are sorry for the role we played in your village's destruction." So that was how Alona knew she was the queen's great granddaughter, she had seen her during Evo's search.

Anna gaped at her. "Evo used you to cast the spell." It was not a question but Alona nodded. "Were you not just telling me of weak men who would try to make others feel the guilt for their own crimes? How on earth can you expect me to accept an apology for something that Evo did?"

Rosli shook her head. "If it weren't for our power he never would have been able to find your village, you would be safe."

"And you all would still be collared." Anna stated, suddenly very perturbed with this line of thinking. "I accept no apology and if I could forbid you from giving one I would. This is not any of your doing, just as it is not my family's fault that the lives of the people in our village were lost, or my fault for..." she stopped. She knew it to be true, but it was still hard to say because she did not truly believe it herself. "It is not my fault for what happened to my friend."

She slid off the table and wandered over to the window, looking out on the sprawling city below her. Once this was the center of a great empire, a monarchy that built up its citizens instead of using them however it saw fit. Perhaps she was naïve, her perfect version of the past was more likely myth and legend, but it did give them something to strive for.

But she? A queen? The idea was ridiculous. She was uneducated, a peasant girl who had stumbled into magic. There was no basis for her to rule. She was better off leaving all that to the people who knew about these things. What did she know about courts and politics and the rule of law? She could go do something else now that she was done with her mission. Though the thought once again left her gripped with panic. There seemed to be a big blank in her mind when she tried to think of anything beyond the walls of the palace. Out there was no purpose, nothing to strive for. Without something to do, she felt the uncertainty was too overwhelming.